WASHINGTON (AP) — Racist text messages with references to slavery caused alarm across the country this week after they were sent to black men, women and students, including high school students, prompting investigations by the FBI and others. agencies.
The messages, sent anonymously, were reported in several states, including New York, Alabama, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. They used a similar tone, but with some changes in their wording.
Some of the messages instructed the recipient to show up “with their belongings” at a specific address and time, while others did not include a location. Some of them mentioned the administration of the next president, Donald Trump.
It is currently unknown who sent the messages and there was no complete list of the places from which they were sent, but the recipients included high school and university students.
The FBI indicated that it is in contact with the Department of Justice, while the Federal Communications Commission indicated that it is conducting an investigation “along with law enforcement authorities at the federal and state levels.” The Ohio prosecutor’s office also announced an investigation into the case.
Tasha Dunham, a resident of Lodi, California, said her 16-year-old daughter showed her one of the messages before her basketball practice Wednesday.
The message not only included her daughter’s name, but demanded that she show up at a “plantation” in North Carolina, where, according to Dunham, they have never lived. When they looked up the address, it turned out to be the location of a museum.
“It was very disturbing,” Dunham said. “Everyone is trying to figure out what this all means, so I was definitely very scared and very worried.”
At first, her daughter thought it was a joke, but emotions are running high after Tuesday’s presidential election. Dunham and her family thought it might be something more nefarious and reported it to local authorities.
“I did not experience slavery. My mother did not experience slavery. But we were a couple of generations away. So when you think about how horrendous and how terrible slavery was for our people, it’s horrifying and disturbing,” Dunham said.
About six high school students in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, also received the messages, said Megan Shafer, interim superintendent of the Lower Merion school district.
“The racist nature of these text messages is extremely disturbing, made even more so by the fact that they were sent to children,” he wrote in a letter to parents.
Students at some universities, including Clemson in South Carolina and the University of Alabama, also reported receiving the messages. Clemson police said in a statement that they had been notified of the “deplorable racist text messages and emails” and encouraged anyone who received one to report it.
Fisk University, a historically black university in Nashville, Tennessee, issued a statement calling the messages some of its students received “extremely disturbing.” He called for calm and assured his students that the messages probably came from bots or subjects “with no real intentions or credibility.”
Missouri NAACP President Nimrod Chapel said black students who are members of the organization’s chapter at Missouri State University received texts citing Trump’s victory and calling them by name as “selected to pick cotton” next Tuesday. Chapel said police in the southeastern Missouri city of Springfield, home of the university, have been notified.
“It targets a well-organized and resourceful group that has decided to attack Americans in our own land based on the color of our skin,” Chapel said in a statement.
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Nick Ludlum, senior vice president of wireless telecommunications companies trade group CTIA, said that “wireless service providers are aware of these threatening messages and are working aggressively to block them and the numbers they come from.”
David Brody, director of the Digital Justice Initiative at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, said they’re not sure who is responsible, but they estimate they have been sent to more than 10 states, including nearly all of those in the region. south of the country, Maryland, Oklahoma and even the District of Columbia. The capital’s police indicated in a statement that its intelligence unit is investigating the origin of the message.
According to Brody, several civil rights laws related to hate speech may apply. Leaders of several other civil rights organizations repudiated the messages, including Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who said, “There is no place for hate speech in the South or in our nation.”
“The threat — and the mention of slavery in 2024 — is not only deeply disturbing, it perpetuates a legacy of evil that dates back to before the era of Jim Crow, and now seeks to prevent black Americans from enjoying the same freedom to pursue life, liberty and happiness,” said Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP. “These actions are not normal. And we refuse to allow them to become normal.”
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