'Selected to be a slave': Racist texts sent to Black Americans in multiple states
SAVANNAH, Ga. (WSAV) — The day after Election Day, Black Americans across nearly a dozen states started receiving text messages telling them they had been selected to become a slave.
The racist messages, sent anonymously, raised alarm across the country this week after they were sent to Black men, women and students, including middle schoolers, prompting inquiries by the FBI and other agencies
The messages have been reported in several states, including Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington, D.C.
Nexstar's WSAV acquired one of the text messages from a viewer in Savannah, Georgia, informing a 16-year-old that she would "be picked up in a white van with Trump Representative from your area."
Karin Freeman said she was at home with her kids on Wednesday when she got a text message from a number she didn't recognize.
"It was this odd ominous feeling text message, basically saying, 'Hello, you've been selected to be a slave on a plantation, and you're scheduled to get picked up at 12 a.m. on Nov. 13,'" Freeman said. "I was immediately disturbed."
Not every message is the same, but most use the same talking points: They inform the recipient that they have been chosen to be a slave at their nearest plantation and that they should gather their belongings and wait to be picked up in a van. Some messages mention that the recipient had been selected to pick cotton.
The messages started the day after former President Donald Trump won decisively over Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
"While I disagree with Trump's behavior, that does not justify the use of racial profiling against African Americans by the senders of these unnecessary text messages in the aftermath of the election," said Shante Brown, whose daughter received a similar text message.
Freeman and others believe the messages may have been sparked by the current political climate.
"I think this is intentional to scare people of color -- Black people -- into a reality that we don't want to go back to," Freeman said, adding, "I am overwhelmed with anxiety and fear about how I'm going to help my children make sense of the world that they have to navigate as Black children."
It wasn't immediately clear who was behind the messages, and there was no comprehensive list of where they were sent, but high school and college students were among the recipients.
The FBI said it was in touch with the Justice Department on the messages, and the Federal Communications Commission said it was investigating the texts “alongside federal and state law enforcement.” The Ohio Attorney General's office also said it was looking into the matter.
WSAV reached out to the Georgia Attorney General's Office regarding the messages and was told that the office had just been informed about the texts and did not have a statement Thursday afternoon.
Tasha Dunham of Lodi, California, said her 16-year-old daughter showed her one of the messages Wednesday evening before her basketball practice.
The text not only used her daughter's name, but it directed her to report to a “plantation” in North Carolina, where Dunham said they’ve never lived. When they looked up the address, it was the location of a museum.
“It was very disturbing,” Dunham said. “Everybody’s just trying to figure out what does this all mean for me? So, I definitely had a lot of fear and concern.”
Her daughter initially thought it was a prank, but emotions are high following Tuesday’s presidential election. Dunham and her family thought it could be more nefarious and reported it to local law enforcement.
“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.
About six middle school students in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, received the messages too, said Megan Shafer, acting superintendent of the Lower Merion School District.
“The racist nature of these text messages is extremely disturbing, made even more so by the fact that children have been targeted,” she wrote in a letter to parents.
Students at some major universities, including Clemson in South Carolina and the University of Alabama, said they received the messages. The Clemson Police Department said in a statement that it had been notified of the “deplorable racially motivated text and email messages” and encouraged anyone who received one to report it.
Fisk University, a historically Black university in Nashville, Tennessee, issued a statement calling the messages that targeted some of its students “deeply unsettling.” It urged calm and assured students that the texts likely were from bots or malicious actors with “no real intentions or credibility.”
Missouri NAACP President Nimrod Chapel said Black students who are members of the organization's Missouri State University chapter received texts citing Trump’s win and calling them out by name as being “selected to pick cotton” next Tuesday. Chapel said police in the southeastern Missouri city of Springfield, home of the university, have been notified.
“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 in a statement.
Nick Ludlum, a senior vice president for the wireless industry trade group CTIA, said: “Wireless providers are aware of these threatening spam messages and are aggressively working to block them and the numbers that they are coming from.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.