The Halloween display has drawn comparisons to lynching victims.
According to NBC 10 Philadelphia, the decorations outside an unidentified resident’s home in Bristol Borough, Pennsylvania, feature fake bodies wrapped in bags and suspended from a tree.
Local resident Roshea Newkirk expressed disbelief over the display, questioning how the homeowner could fail to recognize why the decorations might be offensive.
“I’m just looking at it, and I’m just thinking to him, like, ‘Do you not see what’s wrong with this?’” Newkirk said.
Local resident Roshea Newkirk questioned how the homeowner could overlook the troubling nature of the display.
“I’m just looking at it, and I’m just thinking to him, like, ‘Do you not see what’s wrong with this?’” Newkirk said.
The Bucks County NAACP has urged the homeowner to remove the decorations, arguing that images of bodies hanging from trees evoke a painful history of racial violence and lynching against Black Americans.
“This is not about restricting Halloween celebrations or freedom of expression. It is about historical awareness, empathy, and respect for our neighbors,” the civil rights organization wrote in a Facebook statement.
The homeowner, whose identity has not been disclosed, told the news outlet that the decorations were purchased online as part of a Halloween kit and were never intended to offend anyone.
However, reactions among neighbors have been mixed, with some residents defending the display as ordinary Halloween decorations rather than something deliberately offensive.
However, some residents see the display as harmless Halloween fun rather than something intended to cause offense.
“At first I looked at it, and it’s a little bit different. Like, but then I’m looking, it’s Halloween,” local resident Mike Wade said.
“My house is scary. My house is always scary. It’s always set up scary. Same thing. Dead bodies laying around, skeletons. It’s Halloween,” Wade told the outlet.
Others, however, argue that the hanging figures are deeply unsettling, drawing comparisons to the racist lynchings that terrorized and killed Black Americans throughout the 20th century.
Some residents, however, defended the decorations, describing them as a typical Halloween display rather than something offensive.
The controversy eventually made its way to a Bristol Borough Council meeting, where officials addressed concerns surrounding the decorations.
Local authorities said they had contacted the homeowner and attempted to persuade him to remove the display, but their efforts were “unsuccessful.”
“He feels they’re Halloween decorations and he won’t take them down. And we don’t have an ordinance against anything like that,” an official said.
Despite the backlash and calls for its removal, the controversial Halloween display remained in place as of Saturday, according to the outlet.
