JUST IN: FBI Investigating After Black People Receive Racist and Offensive Text Messages About ‘Picking Cotton’

The FBI on Thursday announced it is investigating after black people received “racist and offensive” 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,” the FBI said in a statement on Thursday.

“As always, we encourage members of the public to report threats of physical violence to local law enforcement authorities,” the FBI said.

According to reports, black people in Texas, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia and other states received text messages telling them they had “been selected for cotton picking.”

CBS News reported:

Officials and universities in several U.S. states condemned racist text messages that were sent to Black residents on Wednesday. The messages, which had almost identical language, told the recipient they had been “selected for cotton picking.”

The texts were received by people in states including Alabama, Texas, Georgia, Florida, Maryland, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Ohio, CBS News found. NAACP President Derrick Johnson condemned the messages and said they represent an “alarming increase in vile and abhorrent rhetoric.”

The texts were sent from numbers with area codes in at least 25 different states, CBS News found. By Thursday, several numbers were disconnected, while others went to voicemail that identified them as TextNow users, a provider that allows people to create phone numbers for free.

TextNow said in a statement that it had “learned that one or more of our accounts may have been used to send text messages in violation of our terms of service,” adding that it shut down the accounts as soon as it became aware.

“We do not condone the use of our service to send harassing or spam messages and will work with the authorities to prevent these individuals from doing so in the future.”

CBS News spoke to one of the individuals who sent a version of the text. The person, whose area code was linked to Fort Wayne, Indiana, said the message was a prank before they abruptly ended the call. Subsequent requests for comment went unanswered.

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