Origin
In March 2021, Texas school district administrators learned of a purported mock slave auction organized by high school students on Snapchat. The students attended the Don R. Daniel Ninth Grade Campus at Aledo High School. They were subsequently disciplined by the Aledo Independent School District. Aledo is a suburb of Fort Worth.
Mock Bids and Racial Epithets
The news was first reported by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on April 12. It published that the students who participated in the group pretended to sell their Black classmates. They placed mock bids and posted comments about the bids.
A screenshot showed that the group name had at various times included the words “slave trade,” “farm,” and “auction.” When the screenshot was captured, the group name appeared to be a racial epithet followed by the word “auction.”