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US authorities are investigating racist text messages sent anonymously to black Americans across the country this week telling them they should be enslaved, prompting widespread condemnations as well as warnings.
The NAACP civil rights group said the messages urged recipients in multiple states, including Alabama, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia, to report to a plantation to pick cotton, an offensive reference to past enslavement of black people in the United States.
It remained unclear which individuals or entities were behind the reported texts, or how many people had received them.
People in at least 21 states received the texts, including high school and college students, CNN and Associated Press reported.
“These actions are not normal. And we refuse to let them be normalised,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said in a statement from the civil rights organisation, which advocates for racial justice and rights for black Americans.
“These messages represent an alarming increase in vile and abhorrent rhetoric from racist groups across the country.”