US probing bigoted text messages spreading alarm across the country

Federal and state authorities are investigating a wave of bigoted text messages sent anonymously that have spread alarm among black Americans across the country this week, officials and recipients told Reuters.

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 is unclear who is behind the reported texts, how many people had received them, or how the recipients were targeted.

The Federal Communications Commission said on Nov. 8 its enforcement bureau was among those probing the incidents.

Louisiana Attorney-General Liz Murrill, a Republican, told Reuters on Nov. 8 that her office is among those investigating the text messages, adding that some targets - herself included - also received e-mails.

Ms. Murrill, who is white, said one of the messages hit her personal e-mail box at 8:17 a.m. on Nov. 8.