Tampa police are investigating a threatening letter the Hillsborough County Branch of the NAACP received recently.

The letter was mailed to the NAACP’s Tampa office and addressed to its president, Yvette Lewis.

“You know the person is sad. It really is. And the hate that is spewing over in the world of politics today, it’s real sad that in the year 2018 that we’re going through this,” Lewis said. “We should not have to be going through this.”

The handwritten letter was postmarked in St. Petersburg. It had no signature and no return address.

It said, among other things, “gather up you n*****rs friends and family and put them on a bus to Miami. Make sure that lying cheating corrupt piece of garbage Andrew Gillum gets a front seat, that way if the bus crashes he’ll be sure to go through the windshield…get hurt or worse.”

It went on to use other offensive language and vaguely-veiled threats of death for African Americans.

All of this is over the organization’s stance on one of the tax referendums on the November ballot.

Lewis called Tampa Police Chief Brian Dugan and the FBI.

“We definitely keep our doors locked. There are some other security measures that we take that we cannot disclose at this present time, but we are very cautious and safe you know,” Lewis said.

The letter was mailed to the office last Thursday, in the midst of a major manhunt for the person responsible for sending pipe bombs to former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a host of other politicians. Cesar Sayoc was later arrested in South Florida and charged with sending those pipe bombs.

As for the Tampa letter, police said they are taking it very seriously.

“There’s no specific threat in there. It’s offensive and it’s racist. We still want to know who did it,” said Steve Hegarty with TPD.

Dr. Joshua Scacco, an assistant professor of communication at the University of South Florida, says these kinds of letters are fueled by two things.

“This is where we are. Not only statewide but nationally, what we see is a very hateful environment that’s being supported not only by the technology that is available for people to find each other, but also by our political leaders,” he said.

>> CLICK HERE TO SEE FBI HATE CRIME STATISTICS

As for the NAACP, they said this letter is only a microcosm of the hatred and vitriol the organization has faced throughout its more than a century of existence. And while they are disturbed by it, they’re not distracted by it.

“We’re going to keep going. We’re going to keep going no matter what,” Lewis said. “We are just not going to stop. We’ve come too far to turn around. Enough is enough.”

The letter ended simply with, “Have a nice day.”