A high angle view of University Boulevard in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, with a view of Denny Chimes and Woods Quad near Bryant-Denny Stadium. A University of Alabama student was among those who received a racist text message. (Jeremy Poland/Getty Images)
Black students at the University of Alabama are among many who have received racist text messages from an unknown account.
LaMonica Little, the mother of the student, first saw the messages in a chat group for Black parents with children enrolled at the University of Alabama and asked her son Tyler if he had received it.
A few hours later, he sent her a copy of the text, which Little later posted on Facebook. Like similar text messages sent around the country, it said that he had been selected to pick cotton.
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In an interview on Thursday, Little said she was not surprised by the text after the election results on Tuesday. She said she was afraid something like this would happen and people had become comfortable with “just saying and just doing whatever.”
“It really saddened me to see it, because I know that we are better than that,” she said. “Just to see people feeling like it’s okay to send these type of messages, whether it was for a joke or to scare or whatever they were doing it for, that’s just not the right thing to do.”
The Crimson White, the student newspaper of the University of Alabama, reported Wednesday that other Black students at the school had received the texts.
Deidre Simmons, executive director of communications at the University of Alabama, wrote in a statement that the school was aware other people around the country had received the “disgusting messages.”
“This has been reported to authorities, and we’re asking anyone who may have information regarding these messages to report it to the appropriate authorities,” she wrote. “UA students who have seen or received such messages are also encouraged to contact the Office of Student Care and Well-Being for any additional support that may be needed.”
Little said Thursday the university had reached out to her about the message.
“They are taking this very seriously,” she wrote in a text message.
A call to the number in the text message to Little’s son led to an out-of-service message. When the Wisconsin Examiner tried to reach numbers listed, they found a generic voicemail box and another out-of-service message.
Similar text messages have been sent throughout the country. Fisk University, an HBCU in Tennessee, is on “high alert” after community members received the messages. The text messages’ phrasing differs, but all say that the recipient has been selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation.
The Southern Poverty Law Center said Thursday that they also had a report from a fraternity at Alabama State University, an HBCU, getting a text message. An ASU spokesman said that as of mid-Thursday afternoon they had not received a report. The SPLC declined to name the fraternity that said it received the text.
“The text sent to young Black people, including students at Alabama State University and the University of Alabama, is a public spectacle of hatred and racism that makes a mockery of our civil rights history,” said Margaret Huang, SPLC president and CEO, in a statement. “Hate speech has no place in the South or in our nation.”
Little said her son has felt safe on campus, but she is cautioning him against going to a popular hangout area.
“I don’t feel safe for him to be out there,” she said. “Just with everything.”
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