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Jimmy Williams
Racist text messages invoking slavery have sparked alarm across the nation this week after anonymous messages were sent to Black students and residents in multiple states, including New York, Alabama, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. The threatening messages, some mentioning the incoming presidential administration, prompted an immediate response from the FBI and other federal and state agencies.
The texts, similar in tone but varied in wording, were reportedly sent to high school and college students as well as other Black residents. Some of the messages instructed recipients to report to a specific address with their belongings, while others did not include any location.
The FBI announced it is coordinating with the Justice Department on the matter, and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) confirmed it is investigating the origins of the messages in collaboration with federal and state law enforcement.
“We are aware of these deplorable messages and are working alongside our federal partners to determine who is responsible,” an FBI spokesperson stated.
University campuses were among the locations impacted. At Clemson University in South Carolina, students reported receiving the messages. The Clemson Police Department issued a statement condemning the “deplorable racially motivated texts and emails” and encouraged those who received them to report the incident. Fisk University, a historically Black college in Nashville, Tennessee, also confirmed that some of its students were targeted, calling the messages “deeply unsettling” in a statement that urged calm. Fisk noted the messages likely came from bots or malicious actors “with no real intentions or credibility.”
Nick Ludlum, senior vice president for the wireless industry trade group CTIA, said wireless providers are actively working to block the numbers used to send these threatening messages. “Providers are aware of these threatening spam messages and are aggressively working to block them,” Ludlum said.
Civil rights advocates and organizations condemned the messages, which they view as part of a larger trend of hate speech. David Brody, director of the Digital Justice Initiative at The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, estimated the messages have been sent to recipients in more than 10 states, including many in the South.
“These threats are part of a disturbing trend, where hate speech and intimidation are targeting Black Americans,” Brody said, urging law enforcement to use civil rights laws to prosecute those responsible.
Civil rights leaders also responded with outrage. Margaret Huang, CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center, called the texts “deeply disturbing,” while Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP, condemned the texts as a “perpetuation of a legacy of evil dating back to before the Jim Crow era.”
“Hate speech has no place in our society,” Johnson stated. “These actions are not normal. And we refuse to let them be normalized.”
This investigation comes at a time of heightened racial tensions and concerns over digital platforms being used to target and intimidate minority communities.
