Racist Text Messages Prompt Investigation by Authorities in Multiple States, Including Alabama and New York

Authorities are investigating racist text messages sent to black Americans across the country telling them to report to a plantation “to pick cotton”.

Black Americans, including school and college students, were among the recipients in states including Alabama, North Carolina, Virginia, New York and Pennsylvania.

“The FBI is aware of the offensive and racist text messages sent to individuals around the country and is in contact with the Justice Department and other federal authorities on the 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 – which strongly denied any connection.

Steven Cheung, a campaign spokesman, said: “The campaign has absolutely nothing to do with these text messages.”

The source of the anonymous messages and the total number sent are unclear.

A 42-year-old mother in Indiana sent a copy of the texts her high-school-aged daughter received to the BBC.

The messages said that the daughter had “been selected to become a slave at your nearest plantation” and would be “picked up in a white van” and “searched thoroughly once you’ve reached your destination”.

The woman, who asked to remain anonymous for her safety, called the messages “extremely, extremely alarming” and made her feel “really vulnerable”.

“It’s because of America’s history, but the timing is specific to the day after the election,” she said. “This had to be a strategised effort.”

Another recipient, Hailey Welch, told a University of Alabama student newspaper that several students on the campus had also received the messages.

“At first I thought it was a joke, but everyone else was getting them. People were texting, posting on their stories, saying they got them,” Ms Welch told The Crimson White. “I was just stressed out, and I was scared because I didn’t know what was happening.”

The wording of the messages varied but generally instructed recipients to report to a “plantation” or wait to be picked up in a van, and referred to “slave” labour.

In a statement Derrick Johnson, head of the civil rights group NAACP, said: “These actions are not normal.”

“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,” Johnson said.