Authorities work to find source of racist texts sent to Black people nationwide after election
WASHINGTON -- Federal and state authorities are working to find the origins of racist text messages sent to Black people across the country referencing slavery and telling them they were "selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation."
Children, college students and working professionals have received the mass texts from unrecognized phone numbers in the wake of the presidential election. The hate-filled rhetoric reminiscent of the country's painful and bigoted past has been reported in more than 20 states from New York to California, and the District of Columbia.
The NAACP's president warned Thursday of possible broader implications, while attorneys general of both parties are condemning the messages and vowing to root out their senders.
"The unfortunate reality of electing a president who, historically, has embraced and at times encouraged hate, is unfolding before our eyes," NAACP CEO Derrick Johnson said. "These messages 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."
Donald Trump's presidential "campaign has absolutely nothing to do with these text messages," spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
Students from at least three historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) - Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia, Fisk University in Nashville and Claflin University in Orangeburg, South Carolina - have reported receiving the text messages, according to statements from the universities.
The Federal Communications Commission's enforcement bureau is investigating the texts, FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel announced. "These messages are unacceptable," she said. "We take this type of targeting very seriously."
The FBI said it "is aware of the offensive and racist text messages sent to individuals and is in contact with the Justice Department and other federal authorities on the matter," according to a statement Thursday.
Here's what we know about the origins of the mass text messages and how its recipients were targeted:
It's unclear where the texts came from
It was not immediately clear who sent the messages, and there is no complete list of to whom they were delivered. At least some appear to have been sent through TextNow in what the company believes "is a widespread, coordinated attack," it told CNN on Friday.
"As soon as we became aware, our Trust & Safety team acted quickly, rapidly disabling the related accounts in less than an hour," said the company, whose service lets people sign up anonymously using an email address and send texts that appear to come from a randomly generated phone number.
TextNow is "working alongside our industry partners to uncover more details and continue to monitor patterns to actively block any new accounts attempting to send these messages," the company told CNN. "We do not tolerate or condone the use of our service to send harassing or spam messages and will work with the authorities to prevent these individuals from doing so in the future."
Another text messaging service, TextSpot, told CNN a new user signed up on Wednesday and attempted to use the platform to send a message with racist language. "Our AI functionality immediately flagged the message and prevented it from being sent until we could conduct an internal review," a statement from the company said. "Our team swiftly blocked the message and banned the user from our platform."
The company said it shared information about the user and the message, which mirrored those received by people nationwide, with local law enforcement and the FBI.
The messages "appear to be robotext messages," and the Nevada's Attorney General's Office is working with law enforcement to investigate their source, the office said in a statement on X.
Whoever is sending the racist text messages is using anonymizing software to obscure their location, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill told CNN on Friday. At least some of the messages were sent using an email service routing traffic through Poland, but it does not mean it is where the sender is, the attorney general said.
"They could be coming from Napoleonville, Louisiana, for all we know. We don't know where they are originating from," Murrill said.
Murrill said Thursday she directed state investigators "to fully investigate the origins of these disgusting texts that only intend to divide us." The Louisiana Bureau of Investigations is "still trying to trace where everything is actually originating from," she told CNN.
Attorneys general in Washington, DC, Virginia, New Jersey, Illinois and Maryland have condemned the messages and urged those who feel under threat to contact law enforcement.
Texts addressed recipients by name
Screenshots of the texts shared with CNN and appearing on social media show the racist messages addressed the recipients by name.
The senders likely collected personal data by buying it online and then inputted that and other data into machine-learning algorithms to attain demographic information, Cori Faklaris, an assistant professor of software and information services at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, told the Associated Press.
"All of this means it might be easier than most people realize to make a really good guess about the race or ethnicity of the person attached to that phone number," Faklaris said.
New York Attorney General Letitia James said the texts, which "appear to be targeting Black and brown individuals," may also include other personal information about the recipient, including their location.
"Whoever is responsible for this did some real research not putting together the target list, but also crafting a message that had info that made it seem real," Kenneth Gray, a University of New Haven lecturer and retired FBI special agent, told CNN affiliate WFSB.
Children and college students targeted
Children in middle school, high school and colleges were among those targeted by the racist mass texts, alarming parents and spurring warnings about their psychological impact.
Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland said in a statement Thursday that some of its students received the texts. And while the school board noted "law enforcement in some areas have announced they consider the messages low-level threats," it acknowledged the texts' effects.
"We recognize that the emotional and psychological impact on our students, staff, and particularly our communities of color is profound," the school board's statement reads. "We stand in solidarity with those who feel targeted and hurt by these actions."
Nicole Nuñez, whose 15-year-old son attends a Stella charter school in Los Angeles, told CNN affiliate KABC her son and some of his friends got a similar text message.
"It said he has been chosen to be part of group B to go pick cotton at a plantation, and he will be picked up by a black van and to be ready by 6 p.m. And he said a lot of his Hispanic friends have also gotten the message saying that they will be deported, so they're getting different messages, just worded a little differently," said Nuñez.
Students at major universities, including the University of Alabama, said they received the messages this week.
Black honors freshman Alyse McCall was in tears and wanted to go home after getting a message saying she had been "selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation" and should "be prepared to be searched down," her mother, Arleta McCall, told CNN.
"It's eerie that it's the day after the election. It's eerie that it came to my daughter's personal phone. It's eerie that it's only going to Black students," McCall said. "Her group of friends have mapped out their paths to class so they can walk together and keep each other safe."
Black students at Missouri State University received the texts, too, according to a statement from Missouri NAACP President Nimrod Chapel. "It points to a well-organized and resourced group that has decided to target Americans on our home soil based on the color of our skin," Chapel said.
CNN affiliates have reported instances of students receiving the racist texts in South Carolina, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, among other states.
"The racist nature of these text messages is extremely disturbing, made even more so by the fact that children have been targeted," Megan Shafer, acting superintendent of the Lower Merion School District, in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, wrote in a letter to parents.
'I want it to stop,' grandmother says
When one of the texts popped up on a 12-year-old Milwaukee girl's phone, she immediately told her grandmother.
"You have been selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation. Please have your belongings together by ten sharp. Our executive slaves will pick you up in a yellow van," the text read, using the girl's full name, CNN affiliate WISN reported.
"That's the scary part. How did they get her name?" the girl's grandmother Jackie Bradley told WISN.
The girl asked her grandmother if she had received the same text.
"I was disgusted and very, very it made me very upset because she had to receive that text and she don't know how to deal with that," Bradley said.
Bradley said she reported the text to the police and the FBI.
"I want it to stop, and I want people to come together and just stop this nonsense," Bradley told WISN. "When you're getting kids involved, let alone people of color receiving these texts, but then you send this to a child ... It's not funny at all ... I mean, if you have to prosecute somebody, to prosecute them because this is gone too far."
Shock and anger throughout the country
Talaya Jones, a Black resident of Piscataway, New Jersey, was "shocked," then angry and sad after receiving a racist text Wednesday telling her she had been "selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation" and referring to "executive slave catchers," she told CNN.
"It really just shows that we didn't come as far as everybody thought we did as a nation, from back in the day when slavery was still a thing," Jones said.
The text messages hark back to the era from the early 17th century to the end of the Civil War in 1865, when millions of enslaved Africans were shipped to the United States and forced to toil on plantations.
Many were forced to live and work on plantations growing cotton, considered a leading cash crop. They picked cotton for long hours and endured heat, humidity, unsanitary conditions, untreated illnesses, malnourishment and rape.
Enslaved people were often auctioned off and sold to other slave owners, leading to families being separated. Slave catchers, known as slave patrols, were legally charged with controlling the enslaved population. Their duties included chasing down and apprehending runaway slaves and returning them to their owners, enforcing curfews and beating and terrorizing slaves who were rebellious or disobedient.
"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," NAACP CEO Johnson said.
When Jones realized that young people were getting the texts, including elementary and middle school students, that's when the sadness set in, Jones said.
"Why would you want to intentionally hurt somebody that you don't even know?" she said.
Lodi, California, resident Tasha Dunham told WCVB her 16-year-old daughter had received a message telling her to report to a plantation in North Carolina.
"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," Dunham said.
A day after receiving the text message, Jones also received an email addressing her by the N-word and containing a similar message about being "selected to pick cotton."
"Who is doing this and how are they able to keep coming back?" she asked. "You don't feel safe in anything that you do, because you don't know who's doing it. You don't know how far they'll take it."
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