WASHINGTON– Racist text messages invoking slavery sparked alarm across the country this week after they were sent to black men, women and students, including high school students, prompting investigations by the FBI and other agencies.

The messages, sent anonymously, were reported in several states, including New York, Alabama, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. They generally used a similar tone but varied in wording.

Some instructed the recipient to show up at an address at a certain time “with their belongings,” while others did not include a location. Some of them mentioned the next presidential administration.

It was still unclear who was behind the messages and there was no complete list of where they were sent, but recipients included high school and college students.

The FBI said it was in contact with the Justice Department about the messages, and the Federal Communications Commission said it was investigating the texts “along with federal and state authorities.” The Ohio Attorney General’s office also said it was investigating the matter.

Tasha Dunham of Lodi, California, said her 16-year-old daughter showed her one of the messages Wednesday night before her basketball practice.

The text not only used her daughter’s name, but also instructed her to show up at a “plantation” in North Carolina, where Dunham said they had never lived. When they looked up the address, it was the location of a museum.

“It was very disturbing,” Dunham said. “Everyone is trying to figure out what this all means to me. So I definitely had a lot of fear and worry.”

His daughter initially thought it was a joke, but emotions are high after Tuesday’s presidential election. Dunham and her family thought it could be more nefarious and reported it to local authorities.

“I wasn’t in slavery. My mother wasn’t in slavery. But we’re a couple generations away. So when you think about how brutal and horrible slavery was for our people, it’s horrible and disturbing,” Dunham said. .

About six high school students in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, also received the messages, said Megan Shafer, interim superintendent of the Lower Merion school district.

“The racist nature of these text messages is extremely disturbing, and is made even more so by the fact that children have been targeted,” he 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 messages and emails” and encouraged anyone who received one to report it.

Fisk University, a historically black university in Nashville, Tennessee, issued a statement calling the messages directed at some of its students “deeply disturbing.” He urged calm and assured students that the texts likely came 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 text messages citing Trump’s victory and calling them by name as “selected to pick cotton ” next Tuesday. Chapel said police in the southeastern Missouri city of Springfield, home of the university, were notified.

“It targets a well-organized and resourceful group that has decided to attack Americans on our soil based on the color of our skin,” Chapel said in a statement.

Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland also sent an email to parents stating that “many students” received text messages containing “racist threats.”

“Local law enforcement and the FBI are aware of these messages, and law enforcement in some areas have announced that they consider the messages to be low-level threats,” the email said.

Nick Ludlum, senior vice president at wireless industry trade group CTIA, said: “Wireless service providers are aware of these threatening spam messages and are working aggressively to block them and the numbers they come from.”

David Brody, director of the Digital Justice Initiative at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said they’re not sure who is behind the messages, but estimates they have been sent to more than 10 states, including most of the southern states, Maryland. , Oklahoma and even the District of Columbia. The district’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement that its intelligence unit was investigating the origins of the message.

Brody said several civil rights laws can apply to hate-related incidents. Leaders of several other civil rights organizations condemned the messages, including Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who said, “Hate speech has no place in the South or our nation.”

“The threat – and the mention of slavery in 2024 – is not only deeply disturbing, but it perpetuates a legacy of evil that dates back to before the era of Jim Crow, and that now seeks to prevent black Americans from enjoying the same freedom to pursue life. freedom and happiness,” said NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson. “These actions are not normal. And we refuse to let them be normalized.”