JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The FBI is investigating racist text messages sent to Black people across the country about being “selected to pick cotton.”
The anonymous messages were reported in several states including Florida, New York, Michigan, Alabama, Ohio, California, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.
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Former Jacksonville Director of Community Initiatives Lakesha Burton received one of the text messages and posted it on her Facebook page.
The texts follow a pattern that addresses recipients by name, telling them they were selected to “pick cotton” on a plantation and ordered to be ready to be picked up by handlers to be transported to the plantation.
Clay County Sheriff Michelle Cook released a statement after some Clay County residents received the text messages.
“We are aware of the awful and disgusting message that is being sent to members of our community and throughout the nation. We have assigned a detective to investigate and have reached out to our local FBI office, as this disgusting message has spread across the country. We believe at this time that the message originated outside of Clay County and encourage people not to forward the text. The message absolutely does NOT reflect or represent our community standards and values,” Cook said.
NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson condemned the messages sent in the wake of the presidential election.
“The unfortunate reality of electing a President who, historically has embraced, and at times encouraged hate, is unfolding before our eyes,” Johnson said. “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.”
Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign told the New York Times that the “campaign has absolutely nothing to do with these text messages.”
It’s not immediately clear who sent the messages but some have been sent through TextNow in what the company “believes is a widespread coordinated attack,” it told CNN.
“As soon as we became aware, our Trust & Safety team acted quickly, rapidly disabling the related accounts in less than an hour,” said the company, whose service lets people sign up anonymously using an email address and send texts that appear to come from a randomly-generated phone number.
The FBI released a statement on Wednesday about the racist text messages.
“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. As always, we encourage members of the public to public to report threats of physical violence to local law enforcement authorities,”