JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Black Jacksonville residents are receiving racist text messages suggesting they’ll be put back into slavery.
There have been reports of similar messages being sent throughout the country.
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One of the text messages was sent to Jacksonville resident Charmaine Green’s 15-year-old son. She told Action News Jax she had just been reading reports of the racist texts being sent in other parts of the country when her son showed her his phone and revealed he’d received one too.
“He did feel uncomfortable. I felt uncomfortable. My son is only 15 years old,” Green said.
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The texts all follow a similar theme, referring to the recipient by name and telling them they’ve been selected as a cotton picker at a plantation and will be picked up by ‘executive slaves’.
Green said she was shocked when she read the message.
“I’m fearful because I’m like, okay, so who knows my son’s information? Where could they have received this information from? And then of course I was saddened. Saddened that someone would take the time out and send this, you know, this type of information to anyone, let alone a 15-year-old kid,” Green said.
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Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office told Action News Jax the agency has received multiple tips regarding other racist messages received locally and JSO’s Intelligence Unit is investigating.
For Green, she said she’s hopeful authorities can track down whoever is behind the racist messages and hold them to account if it’s determined they violated any laws.
“I’m praying. I hope they do, because my concern is okay, adults, yeah that’s wrong. I get it, but adults can handle it a little more. When you’re dealing with children it’s kind of hard for them to process that information and understand what’s going on,” Green said.
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Some of the messages published by outlets nationwide also include signatures implying they were sent by the Trump campaign or even Trump himself. A Trump campaign official told Action News Jax, that the campaign has absolutely nothing to do with the messages.
The FBI provided the following statement regarding the messages, which states the following:
“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 report threats of physical violence to local law enforcement authorities.”
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Local law enforcement like Clay County Sheriff Michelle Cook are reacting to the messages and posted the following on Facebook:
“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.”
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Action News Jax sister station WSOC in Charlotte received the following statement from the company TextNow, which discovered some of its accounts had been used to send the messages:
“TextNow has uncovered that one or more of our accounts was used to send text messages in violation of our terms of service. As soon as we became aware, our Trust & Safety team acted quickly and disabled the related accounts in less than an hour. As part of our investigation into these messages, we learned they have been sent through multiple carriers across the US and we are working with partners and law enforcement cooperatively to investigate this attack.
“TextNow is proud to be an inclusive service offering free mobile calling, text, and data to millions of Americans. We do not tolerate or condone the use of our service to send messages that are intended to harass or spam others and will work with the authorities to prevent these individuals from doing so in the future.”
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