Reports are pouring in about black people in the United States receiving disturbing text messages referencing slavery and “cotton picking” following Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election. These racist messages have been reported in more than a dozen states, including California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, North Carolina, Virginia and Alabama. CNN. The messages, sent anonymously, instructed recipients to report to a “plantation” or board a bus, raising widespread alarm and prompting investigations by the FBI and other agencies.
The messages often instruct recipients to report to a specific address, sometimes mentioning the incoming presidential administration. Some even target children, with reports of high school students receiving these hateful messages. For example, a 16-year-old girl in California received a text message telling her to report to a “plantation” in North Carolina.
A friend in San Francisco received this racist text today, and after checking social media, it seems a lot of black people are receiving it too. pic.twitter.com/eDyFf3a6Ix
— John Ryan E (@RyanElward) November 7, 2024
The FBI is working with the Department of Justice to address these incidents, while the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is investigating along with federal and state law enforcement. TextNow, the platform through which some of these messages were sent, said this CNN this is a “widespread, coordinated attack.”
FBI statement on offensive and racist text messageshttps://t.co/vpQYAO6LT7 pic.twitter.com/iDtN36WhX4
— FBI (@FBI) November 7, 2024
“TextNow is working with our industry partners to discover more details and continue to monitor patterns to actively block new accounts that attempt to send these messages. We do not condone or condone the use of our service to send harassing or spam messages and will cooperate with authorities to prevent these individuals from doing so in the future,” the company said.
Civil rights groups, including the NAACP, one of the largest black civil rights organizations in the US, have condemned these reports. The Southern Poverty Law Center has also spoken out, calling the reports “deeply disturbing.”
“We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: there is no place for hate in a democracy. 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 pursue life pursuit, freedom and happiness,” NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson said in one press release.
Whoever is sending the racist text messages is using anonymization software to hide their location, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill told CNN on Friday.