WASHINGTON – Racist text messages invoking slavery raised alarm across the country this week after they were sent to black men, women and students, including middle schoolers, prompting investigations by 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 an address at a certain time “with your belongings,” while others did not include a location. Some of them mentioned the upcoming presidential administration.

It was still unclear 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 had reached out to the Justice Department about the messages, and the Federal Communications Commission said it was investigating the texts “along with federal and state law enforcement.” The Ohio attorney general’s office also said it was looking into the matter.

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

The text not only used her daughter’s name, but directed 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. “Everybody’s just 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 prank, but emotions are running high after Tuesday’s presidential elections. Dunham and her family thought it could be more sinister and reported her to local law enforcement.

“I was not in slavery. Mother was not in slavery. But we are several generations away. So when you think about how brutal and horrific slavery was for our people, it’s horrific and troubling,” Dunham said.

About six middle school students in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, received the messages, said Megan Shafer, interim superintendent of the Lower Merion School District.

“The racist nature of these text messages is extremely disturbing, all the more so because children were targeted,” she wrote in a letter to parents.

Students at 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 targeting some of its students “deeply disturbing.” He urged calm and assured students that the texts likely came from bots or malicious actors “with no real intent or credibility.”

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

David Brody, director of the Digital Justice Initiative at The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said they were not sure who was behind the messages, but estimated they were sent to more than 10 states, including most from the south, 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 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 our nation.”

“The threat — and 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 their lives . freedom and happiness,” said NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson. “These actions are not normal. And we refuse to let them normalize.”

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