ATLANTA, Oct. 24 (UPI) -- The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has apologized for a post sent from its Twitter account that was racially insensitive to the winner of a Georgia lottery.

The post, sent Wednesday, read, "$1M Lottery winner Willie Lynch can get 40 acres and a whole lotta mules" and included a link to an article about Lynch winning the lottery, Politico reported Wednesday.


The tweet was later removed and the newspaper posted an apology on its Twitter page:

"The Atlanta Journal-Constitution sincerely regrets an earlier Twitter message that contained an inappropriate statement."

"We took immediate action to apologize via social media and will issue an apology in Thursday's print edition. We do not condone such offensive messages and are reviewing our procedures to ensure this type of error does not happen again."

Politico explained that "40 acres and a mule" referred to a Civil War-era proclamation by the Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman that would have given freed slaves in the South 40 acres of tillable land on islands along the coast of Georgia and mules. The proclamation was reversed and only a handful of ex-slaves received any land during Reconstruction after the war.