High school and college students were among the recipients, the Associated Press reported.

“These actions are not normal. And we refuse to let them be normalised,” NAACP president Derrick Johnson said in a statement from the organisation, which advocates for racial justice and rights for black Americans.

Johnson said the messages were a reflection of Republican Donald Trump’s presidential election victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, on Tuesday, which sent shockwaves through black American communities.

A spokesperson for the president-elect did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday and Friday. Trump denies he is racist and has said his economic agenda would benefit all Americans.

An exit poll conducted by Edison Research on election day showed Harris winning 85 per cent of the black vote nationwide while Trump won 13 per cent, up 1 percentage point from an exit poll in 2020, when he lost to President Joe Biden.

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“We strongly condemn these hateful messages and anyone targeting Americans based on their ethnicity or background,” Robyn Patterson, a White House spokesperson for Biden, said in a statement on Friday.

“Racism has no place in our country. Period.”

The run-up to Tuesday’s election included the biggest rise in US political violence since the 1970s, including some racist attacks on Harris supporters, according to cases identified by Reuters.

Harris, the first woman of colour at the top of a major party ticket, also faced personal attacks, including by Trump, over her race and gender.

Reuters

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