WASHINGTON — Racist text messages invoking slavery sparked nationwide concern this week after they were sent to black men, women and college students, including middle school students, prompting inquiries from the FBI and other authorities.

The messages, which were sent anonymously, were reported in several states, including New York, Alabama, California, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. They generally used a similar tone but varied in wording.

Some instructed the recipient to show up at an address at a certain time “with your belongings,” while others did not specify a location. Some of them mentioned the incoming presidential administration.

It was not yet clear who was behind the messages and there was no comprehensive list of where they were sent, but high school and college students were among the recipients.

The FBI said it was in contact with the Justice Department about the messages, and the Federal Communications Commission said it was investigating the texts “along with federal and state law enforcement.” The Ohio attorney general’s office also said it was investigating the matter.

Tasha Dunham of Lodi, Calif., said her 16-year-old daughter showed her one of the messages Wednesday night before her basketball practice.

Not only did the text use her daughter’s name, but it led her to report to a “plantation” in North Carolina, where Dunham said they have never lived. When they looked up the address, it was the site of a museum.

“It was very disturbing,” Dunham said. “Everybody’s just trying to figure out what does all this mean for me? So I definitely had a lot of fear and anxiety.”

Her daughter thought it was a joke at first, but emotions are running high after Tuesday’s presidential election. Dunham and her family thought it might be more sinister and reported it to local law enforcement.

“I wasn’t in slavery. My mother wasn’t in slavery. But we’re a couple of generations away. So when you think about how brutal and horrible slavery was for our people, it’s horrible and disturbing,” Dunham said.

About six middle school students in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, also received the notices, said Megan Shafer, acting superintendent of the Lower Merion School District.

“The racist nature of these text messages is extremely concerning, heightened by the fact that children have been targeted,” she wrote in a letter to parents.

Students at some major universities, including Clemson in South Carolina and the University of Alabama, said they received the messages. The Clemson Police Department said in a statement that it had been notified of the “deplorable racially motivated text and email messages” and encouraged anyone who received one to report it.

Fisk University, a historically black university in Nashville, Tennessee, issued a statement calling the messages directed at some of its students “deeply troubling.” It urged calm and assured students that the texts likely came from bots or malicious actors with “no real intent or credibility”.

Missouri NAACP President Nimrod Chapel said black students who are members of the organization’s Missouri State University chapter received texts citing Trump’s win and calling them by name “chosen to pick cotton” next Tuesday. Chapel said police in Springfield, in southeast Missouri, where the university is located, have been notified.

“It points to a well-organized and resourceful group that has decided to target Americans on our home soil based on the color of our skin,” Chapel said in a statement.

Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland also sent an email to parents saying “many students” received text messages containing “racial threats.”

“Local law enforcement and the FBI are aware of these messages, and law enforcement in some areas have advised that they consider the messages to be low-level threats,” the email said.

Nick Ludlum, senior vice president of the wireless industry trade group CTIA, said: “Wireless providers are aware of these threatening spam messages and are working aggressively to block them and the numbers from which they originate.”

David Brody, director of the Digital Justice Initiative at The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said they are not sure who is behind the messages but estimated they had been sent to more than 10 states, including most of the southern states, Maryland , Oklahoma and even the District of Columbia. The district’s Metropolitan Police force said in a statement that its intelligence unit was investigating the origin of the message.

Brody said a number of civil rights can be applied to hate-related incidents. The leaders of several other civil rights organizations condemned the messages, including Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who said, “Hate speech has no place in the South or our nation.”

“The threat – and the mention of slavery in 2024 – is not only deeply troubling, but perpetuates a legacy of evil that dates back to the pre-Jim Crow era, and now seeks to prevent black Americans from enjoying the same freedom to pursue life, liberty and happiness” , said NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson. “These actions are not normal. And we refuse to let them be normalized.”