The NAACP on Thursday condemned racist text messages referencing slavery that were sent anonymously to Black Americans this week as a contentious election was coming to an end in the United States.
The messages urged recipients in multiple states, including Alabama, North Carolina, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, to report to a plantation to pick cotton, the NAACP said in a statement.
The FBI said on Thursday it was in touch with the U.S. Justice Department and other federal authorities about the “offensive and racist messages.”
“These actions are not normal. And we refuse to let them be normalized,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement from the organization, which advocates for racial justice and rights for Black Americans.
High school and college students were among the recipients, the Associated Press reported.
Johnson said the messages were a reflection of Donald Trump’s presidential election victory on Tuesday, which sent shockwaves through Black American communities.
Many Black Americans fear a rollback of civil rights after Trump’s pledge to end federal diversity and inclusion programs.
The president-elect denies he is racist, and has said his economic agenda will benefit all Americans, including Black Americans.
A spokesperson for the president did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent after normal business hours in Washington.
Johnson said the 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.”
The run-up to Tuesday’s general election in the United States included the biggest rise in U.S. political violence since the 1970s, which included some racist attacks on supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris, the first woman of color at the top of a major party ticket.
(Reuters)