Racist Text Messages Targeting Black Individuals Spark Investigations Across Multiple States
Racist text messages invoking slavery have caused widespread alarm across the country this week after being sent to Black men, women, and students, including middle schoolers. The anonymous messages, which have prompted investigations by the FBI and other agencies, have been reported in several states, including New York, Alabama, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. While the messages shared a similar tone, the wording varied slightly from one to the next.
Some messages instructed recipients to show up at a specific address “with your belongings,” while others did not include a location. Some of the texts referenced the incoming presidential administration. The exact source of the messages remains unclear, and there is no comprehensive list of where they were sent, but high school and college students were among those targeted.
The FBI confirmed that it was in contact with the Justice Department regarding the matter, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) stated it was investigating the issue in collaboration with federal and state law enforcement agencies. The Ohio Attorney General’s office also announced that it was looking into the matter.
Tasha Dunham of Lodi, California, shared a troubling experience when her 16-year-old daughter received one of the messages Wednesday evening before her basketball practice. The message, which included her daughter’s name, directed her to report to a “plantation” in North Carolina, a place they had never lived. After researching the address, the family discovered it led to a museum.
“It was very disturbing,” Dunham said, expressing her fear and concern. “Everybody’s just trying to figure out what this all means for me?” She explained that while her daughter initially thought it was a prank, emotions were running high following the recent presidential election, and the family believed the message could have more sinister intentions. They reported the incident to local law enforcement.
Dunham, reflecting on the horrors of slavery, added, “I wasn’t in slavery. My mother wasn’t in slavery. But we’re a couple of generations away. So, when you think about how brutal and awful slavery was for our people, it’s awful and concerning.”
In Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, six middle school students also received similar messages, according to Megan Shafer, acting superintendent of the Lower Merion School District. She described the racist nature of the messages as “extremely disturbing,” particularly because they targeted children, and communicated her concern to parents.
Students at major universities, including Clemson University in South Carolina and the University of Alabama, also reported receiving the messages. The Clemson Police Department issued a statement condemning the “deplorable racially motivated text and email messages” and urged anyone who received one to report it.
Fisk University, a historically Black university in Nashville, Tennessee, called the messages targeting its students “deeply unsettling,” and reassured students that the texts were likely sent by bots or malicious actors with “no real intentions or credibility.”
Wireless industry trade group CTIA’s senior vice president, Nick Ludlum, confirmed that wireless providers were actively working to block the threatening spam messages and their originating numbers.
David Brody, director of the Digital Justice Initiative at The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, stated that while the exact perpetrators are unknown, the messages had been sent to more than 10 states, including several Southern states, Maryland, Oklahoma, and Washington, D.C. The Metropolitan Police Department in D.C. is also investigating the origins of the texts.
Brody noted that civil rights laws could apply to such hate-related incidents. Civil rights leaders, including Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center, condemned the messages, with Huang stating, “Hate speech has no place in the South or our nation.”
NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson also spoke out, saying, “The threat — and the mention of slavery in 2024 — is not only deeply disturbing, but perpetuates a legacy of evil that dates back to before the Jim Crow era, and now seeks to prevent Black Americans from enjoying the same freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.” He added, “These actions are not normal. And we refuse to let them be normalized.”
