Racist Text Messages Sent to Students After Election

Contributed photo A message received by a Troy student on the day after the election.

Troy University students are among the hundreds of Black individuals across the nation who have received racially charged text messages, beginning just one day after former President Donald Trump won the election.

These messages, mostly targeting college students, included highly offensive phrases such as, “Greeting Soon Too Be Slave, You have been selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation,” and “Our Executive Slaves will come get you in a Brown Van, be prepared to be searched down once you’ve entered the plantation.”

Some messages even included a “start date” and various other colors of van, times and “plantation group” letters.

According to AL.com, many of the phone numbers from which the messages were sent had area codes from inside and outside of Alabama. Calls to the numbers went to an automatic voicemail referencing “TextNow,” a service that creates seemingly untraceable phone numbers.

On Friday, two days after the messaging began, Chancellor Jack Hawkins Jr. sent out a Troy-wide announcement regarding the harmful nature of the texts and the course of action the university plans to take to protect students.

“As a university that embraces a diverse campus, and proudly serves as home to John Robert Lewis Hall and the Rosa Parks Museum, I find these messages to be deeply upsetting and totally opposed to the values and mission of TROY,” the statement says. “It is unclear who is behind these disturbing texts and the incidents are under investigation by law enforcement.

“Troy University will cooperate with agencies that are investigating this situation, and we hope those responsible face consequences.”

Students who receive, or have recently received racially insensitive messages, are urged to report to Dean of Student Services Herbert Reeves at 334-670-3203 or hreeves@troy.edu.

Other universities in Alabama, such as The University of Alabama and Samford University, were among some of the first to react to the messages, with many of their students receiving them early after Trump’s re-election.

Law enforcement is involved.

In an interview with AL.com, a spokeswoman for the Alabama Attorney General’s office said, “We have been made aware of these text messages. The language used is clearly intended to intimidate recipients and is abhorrent.

“If you receive one of these text messages, you should immediately report it to law enforcement.”