Racist text messages referencing slavery are raising alarms in several states

WASHINGTON (AP) — Racist text messages invoking slavery raised alarms across the country this week after they were sent to Black men, women and students, including high school students, prompting questions from the FBI and other agencies.

The messages, sent anonymously, were reported in several states, including New York, Alabama, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania And Tennessee. They generally used a similar tone but varied in wording.

Some instructed the recipient to show up at a certain address at a certain time “with your belongings,” while others did not specify a location. Some of them mentioned the incoming presidential administration.

It was not yet clear who was behind the messages and there was no comprehensive list of where they were sent, but high school and college students were among the recipients.

The FBI said it was in contact with the Justice Department about the messages, and the Federal Communications Commission said it was investigating the texts “alongside federal and state law enforcement.” The Ohio attorney general’s office also said it is investigating the matter.

Tasha Dunham of Lodi, California, said her 16-year-old daughter showed her one of the messages Wednesday night before basketball practice.

The text not only used her daughter’s name, but also instructed her to report to a “plantation” in North Carolina, where Dunham said they never lived. When they looked up the address, it was the location of a museum.

“It was very disturbing,” Dunham said. “Everyone’s trying to figure out what does this all mean to me? So I definitely had a lot of fear and worry.”

Her daughter initially thought it was a joke, but after Tuesday emotions ran high presidential elections. Dunham and her family thought it could be even more shameful and reported it to the local police.

“I was not in slavery. My mother was not in slavery. But we are a few generations further. So when you think about how brutal and horrible slavery was for our people, it’s horrible and concerning,” Dunham said.

About six high school students in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, also received the messages, said Megan Shafer, acting 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 children are being targeted,” she wrote in a letter to parents.

Students at several major universities, including Clemson in South Carolina and the University of Alabama, said they received the messages. Clemson police said in a statement that it had been made aware of the “deplorable racially motivated text and email messages” and encouraged anyone who received one to report it.

Fisk University, a historically black university in Nashville, Tennessee, issued a statement calling the messages against some of its students “deeply disturbing.” It encouraged calm and reassured students that the texts were likely from bots or malicious actors with no real intent or credibility.

Missouri NAACP President Nimrod Chapel said Black students who are members of the organization’s Missouri State University chapter received texts citing Trump’s victory and mentioning them by name as being “selected to pick cotton” next Tuesday. Chapel said police in the southeastern Missouri city of Springfield, home to the university, have been notified.

“It highlights a well-organized and resourced group that has decided to target Americans on our home turf based on the color of our skin,” Chapel said in a statement.

Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland also sent an email to parents saying “many students” were receiving text messages containing “racist threats.”

“Local law enforcement agencies and the FBI are aware of these messages, and law enforcement agencies in some areas have announced that they consider the messages to be a low-level threat,” the email said.

Nick Ludlum, senior vice president of wireless industry trade group CTIA, said: “Wireless carriers are aware of these threatening spam messages and are aggressively working to block them and the numbers they come from.”

David Brody, director of the Digital Justice Initiative at The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said they are unsure who is behind the messages but estimate they were sent to more than a dozen states, including most of the Southern states , Maryland , Oklahoma and even the District of Columbia. The district’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement that its intelligence unit was investigating the origins of the message.

Brody said a number of civil rights laws can be applied to hate-related incidents. Leaders of several other civil rights organizations condemned the messages, including Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who said“Hate speech has no place in the South or in our nation.”

“The threat – and the mention of slavery in 2024 – is not only deeply disturbing, but perpetuates a legacy of evil that predates the Jim Crow era and now seeks to prevent Black Americans from enjoying the same freedom to live their lives after to strive for. freedom and happiness,” said NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson. “These actions are not normal. And we refuse to normalize it.”

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Associated Press reporter Summer Ballentine contributed to this report from Jefferson City, Missouri.

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