Anna Marie Ricks is a high school senior from Lake Village, Arkansas.

Anna grew up in southern Arkansas.

Her parents divorced when she was a child.

Anna lived with her father until she was a young teenager when she moved into her mother's home.

Anna has not seen her father much since then.

After high school, she plans on attending Mississippi State.

Anna asked her friend, Phillip Freeman, to go to prom with her.

Phillip is African-American, and when Anna's father saw the pictures of them together, he was furious. Although her father has always been

openly racist, his full feelings were revealed in a series of text messages after prom.

He said "I won't be coming to your graduation.

Nor will I pay for your college.

Go live with the niggers," added "go ahead be a FUCKIN whore leave me out of it," and ended with "you want to mingle with Subhumans I'll treat you accordingly."

After the incident, Anna felt incredibly sad and shared the texts with Phillip.

He then posted the texts on social media where it went viral.

In a statement about the ideal, Hayes said the point of the post was to show that racism is alive and well in 2017.