Spring Break: Think Texas, Florida, Jamaica!

With spring break right around the corner, many students are searching for ways for themselves and their crews to combine music, “networking” opportunities with on-point brothas and/or sistahs and plenty of sunshine with an economical road trip.
Yet for many, the reality of the week-long vacation is an uneventful music video marathon and munchie-fest on the couch at home. ZZZZZZZ.
Fast-forward to www.black beachweek.com, touted as the No. 1 source for information on national and international black events geared toward the 18- to-35 crowd.
St. Louis-based Terrance Smith, 30, is the founder and sole employee of the Web site. The Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville graduate keeps millions informed of the various large-scale social gatherings. Translation: this brotha knows where the parties are and he most definitely knows what to expect while there.
“Most of the events [on my Web site] are wild, wild weekend street parties,” said Smith, who started www.blackbeachweek.com in August 1999 after sensing the need for a central place to access black event calendar information. “They aren’t for everybody, but they’re definitely places to meet a lot of new friends.”
The typical black spring break consists of concerts, comedy shows, sexy male/female contests, parties galore and impromptu car shows/parades for crowds numbering anywhere from 30,000 to 200,000. According to Smith, the top three necessities for an event include a camera, a camcorder, and sunscreen (“Black people like me burn up,” he insisted.)
Here are the top picks for Spring Break 2003 from the guru of black event information:
Black College Reunion: March 28-30, Daytona Beach, Fla.
Black College Reunion began in 1984 as a beach-side gathering of students and alumni sponsored by Florida institutions, Bethune-Cookman College and Florida A&M University. Each year since, the event has not disappointed.
The action takes place on the Atlantic Avenue strip, where thousands of spring breakers will convene on the timeless Florida beach. Black Entertainment Television will be back down at the festivities, taping a series of concerts entitled, “Spring Bling.”
Beach Party Weekend: April 11-13, Galveston, Texas
Many students on the East Coast who don’t know about this beach party just don’t know what they’re missing. After last year’s estimated 200,000 participants, the Beach Party Weekend has been dubbed the new hot spot for spring break wildin’ out. Held 60 miles outside of Houston, this event started more than 15 years ago as a black fraternity party (formerly known as the Kappa Beach Party).
Anyone will tell you that the strip is Seawall Boulevard. Ironically, celebrations are familiar in Galveston, which is home of the first Juneteenth, when Union soldiers arrived in 1865 with the news that the Civil War had ended and that slaves were free. The news came 2 1/2 years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
Gospel Spring Break: March 13-17 and March 20-24, Ochos Rios, Jamaica
A spiritual alternative to the usual spring break’s sin, sand and sun. Wait a minute, there will be sand and sun. The week, entitled “Fun in the SON,” will feature uplifting speakers, world-renowned worship leaders, brunches and a gospel Olympics.
The event, in its second year, will also give participants the opportunity to reach out with church tours, hospital visits and mission work at children’s homes. Artists such as Mary Mary, Out of Eden, and Alvin Slaughter are slated to perform.
Atlanta Hip-Hop Festival “Indefinitely Postponed”
Though Freaknik is a thing of the past, you knew something was bound to be planned for Hotlanta. But city officials and planners of the “Urban Hip-Hop Festival and Summit” could not agree, and so the event planned for April 11-13 was “indefinitely postponed” on March 13.
The ill-fated weekend (co-sponsored by entertainment mogul Russell Simmons) was to consist of a panel discussion at Morehouse College followed by a two-day music festival; new and classic car shows and exhibits; educational workshops, health screenings and voter registration.
There was no time frame for when organizers might try again to stage the hip-hop event. “We don’t want to throw out a date, because it would have to be mutually agreed upon,” Benjamin Chavis, one of the planners, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “But it will probably take many months.”
Carah L.B. Herring, a student at Bennett College, is editor of The Bennett Banner.