Authorities are investigating racist text messages sent to black Americans across the country asking them to “pick cotton” on plantations.
Recipients in states such as Alabama, North Carolina, Virginia, New York and Pennsylvania include black middle school and college students.
“The FBI is aware of offensive and racist text messages sent to individuals across the country and is in contact with the Department of Justice and other federal authorities regarding this matter,” the agency said.
The messages appear to have started on Wednesday, the day after Election Day. Some of the messages mentioned the Trump campaign, but the Trump campaign strongly denied any connection.
“The campaign has absolutely nothing to do with these text messages,” said campaign spokesman Steven Cheung.
The source of the anonymous messages and the total number sent are unclear.
A 42-year-old mother in Indiana sent the BBC copies of text messages her high school daughter received.
The messages said the daughter had been “selected as a slave on the plantation nearest you” and would be “picked up in a white van” and “searched thoroughly once at her destination.”
The woman, who asked to remain anonymous for her safety, said the information was “very, very shocking” and left her feeling “very vulnerable”.
“It’s because of American history, but the specific time is the day after the election,” she said. “This has to be a strategic effort.”
Another winner, Hailey Welch Tell that to the University of Alabama student newspaper Several students on campus also received the message.
“I thought it was a joke at first, but everyone else got it. People were texting, posting their stories, saying they got it,” Ms Welch told Red and White. “I was stressed out and I was scared because I didn’t know what was going on.”
The wording of the messages varied, but recipients were usually instructed to report to a “plantation” or wait to be picked up by wagon, and there were references to “slave” labor.
“These actions are not normal,” Derrick Johnson, president of the civil rights group NAACP, said in a statement.
Johnson said: “These messages represent an alarming increase in vile and abhorrent rhetoric from racist groups across the country, who are now emboldened to spread hatred and incite the fear that many of us are feeling following Tuesday’s election results. fire.”
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, who is also investigating the messages, said: “These messages are unacceptable. We take this type of attack very seriously.”
In several states, top law enforcement officials said they were aware of the messages and encouraged residents to report them to authorities if they received them.
The Nevada Attorney General’s Office said it was working to “investigate the source of the seemingly robo-text messages.”
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Muriel said in a statement that Louisiana Bureau of Investigation officials have traced some of the messages to a virtual private network in Poland, a method of masking the origin of electronic communications.
Muriel said investigators “did not find any original source, which means they could have come from any bad country in the region or the world.”
The Indiana mother responded to reports that the information may have originated from abroad, telling the BBC: “It doesn’t mean it’s safer or better that it might be coming from abroad.”
“They understand the American mentality,” she said, adding that if reports were true, foreign actors “know what is tearing us apart, what is killing us, what may ultimately destroy us.”
