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In the wake of the election, Black people across the country have reported that they’ve received racist text messages threatening them with slavery, which has prompted investigations in several states and a federal probe.
The texts, sent anonymously, seemed to have begun Wednesday morning just hours after the presidential election was called for Donald Trump. NBC News reported that the messages were similar in nature, telling people that they have been “selected” to pick cotton on a plantation and to be ready at a certain time. Some of the texts referred to the recipient by name.
Several messages also mentioned Trump, though the Trump campaign has repudiated the text messages.
Several messages also mentioned Trump, though the Trump campaign has repudiated the text messages. Brian Hughes, a campaign communication adviser, told NBC News it is “absolute nonsense” to link Trump to the messages. “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 in a statement.
The FBI said Thursday that it’s “aware of the offensive and racist text messages sent to individuals around the country” and is in touch with other federal authorities, including the Justice Department. The Federal Communications Commission said it is also investigating, as did Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost. New York Attorney General Letitia James said that some recipients are as young as middle school students.
The source or sources of the text messages remain a mystery. NBC News reported that some of the originating numbers seem to be linked to TextNow, a text messaging service that allows users to use untraceable numbers. A spokesperson for TextNow told NBC News that it is aware of the messages and that it shut down the accounts involved “within the hour.”
On Friday, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said the Louisiana Bureau of Investigations’ cyber team had traced some of the messages to a VPN in Poland.
“At this time, they have found no original source — meaning they could have originated from any bad actor state in the region or the world,” she said in a statement, adding that the investigation is ongoing.
NAACP President Derrick Johnson condemned the text messages in a statement, saying they “represent an alarming increase in vile and abhorrent rhetoric from racist groups across the country, who now feel emboldened to spread hate and stoke the flames of fear that many of us are feeling after Tuesday’s election results.”