Black middle school, high school and university students across the U.S. have reported receiving racist texts about being “selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation,” prompting investigations by local, state and federal authorities.
The first texts appear to have been sent out the day after Donald Trump won this week’s U.S. presidential election. Since then, there have been reports of the hate-filled texts in dozens of states including New York, Nevada, Ohio, Tennessee and California.
Some instructed the recipient to show up at an address at a particular time “with your belongings,” while others didn’t include a location. Some of them mentioned the incoming presidential administration, and included the recipient by name.
At least some of the messages, which are an offensive reference to past enslavement of Black people in the United States, claimed to have come from “A Trump supporter.”
It’s unclear at this point who is behind the messages, but TextNow, an app that allows people to create untraceable, “burner” phone numbers for free, said at least some of the messages were sent from its platform.
“As soon as we became aware, our Trust & Safety team acted quickly, rapidly disabling the related accounts in less than an hour,” the company told CNN, referring to the texts as a “widespread, coordinated attack.”
The FBI said it was in touch with the Justice Department on 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 was looking into the matter.
Students at some major universities, including Clemson in South Carolina and the University of Alabama, said they received the messages. The Clemson Police Department said in a statement that it had been notified 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, Tenn., issued a statement calling the messages that targeted some of its students “deeply unsettling.” It urged calm and assured students that the texts likely were from bots or malicious actors with “no real intentions 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 win and calling them out by name as being “selected to pick cotton” next Tuesday. Chapel said police in the southeastern Missouri city of Springfield, home of the university, have been notified.
In a statement to NBC News, Brian Hughes of the Trump campaign denounced the texts and said linking the texts to Trump is “absolute nonsense.”
“If we can find the origin of these messages which promote this kind of ugliness in our name we will obviously take legal action to stop it,” Hughes said.
“President Trump built a diverse and broad coalition of support, with voters of all races and backgrounds,” he continued. “The result was a landslide victory for his common sense mandate for change. This will result in a second term that is beneficial to every working man and woman in our nation.”
The NAACP, however, says they believe the messages are a product of Trump being elected to a second term.
“The unfortunate reality of electing a President who, historically has embraced, and at times encouraged hate, is unfolding before our eyes,” NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson shared in a statement. “These actions are not normal. And we refuse to let them be normalized.”
Tasha Dunham of Lodi, Calif., told The Associated Press that her 16-year-old daughter showed her one of the messages Wednesday evening before her basketball practice.
The text not only used her daughter’s name, but it also directed her to report to a “plantation” in North Carolina, where Dunham said they’ve never lived. When they looked up the address, it was the location of a museum.
“It was very disturbing,” Dunham said. “Everybody’s just trying to figure out what does this all mean for me? So, I definitely had a lot of fear and concern.”
— with files from The Associated Press