In Georgia’s Barton County and Houston, Texas, there’s been controversy surrounding Halloween decorations displayed outside two family homes.
In Georgia, Fox 5 Atlanta reports that a woman named Rachel describes the decoration as something she threw together for her kids, saying “I’ve had tons of people driving by taking pictures, beeping, giving me a thumbs up saying that’s awesome. But then, I have other people calling the cops on me, saying it’s racist.” After someone tore down her decoration and called it racist, she put it back up. On Oct. 3, the decoration was taken down for good.
Bartow County NAACP President Dexter Benning expressed concerns about the decorations. He told Fox 5, “Black folks have endured so much in this country, and to depict someone being [hanged] is not a place that we want to be in 2023.”
Benning also said that the decoration appeared to be a Black person due to the brown gloves that were on the dummy’s hands.
Meanwhile, earlier in Texas, the Houston chapter of the NAACP protested a decoration outside of a Third Ward house.
James Dixon, the president of Houston’s NAACP chapter, described it to the Houston Chronicle saying.
“Every Houstonian, Texan, and American should be outraged by the ‘strange fruit’ displayed in Houston,” he said.
Community members also described the decorations as “immeasurably insensitive and racist.” Houston’s District D City Council member Carolyn Evans-Shabazz knocked on the man’s door and informed him that the decorations were offensive.
“I told him he’s in a predominantly African-American neighborhood and when people are offended, sometimes things happen,” Shabazz told the Houston Chronicle. “But he didn’t seem to care. He was very abrasive.”
On Sept. 23, activists Quanell X and Candice Matthews went to the man’s home and cut the decoration out of the man’s tree. Quanell X told the Chronicle that he and Matthews wanted to talk to the man, but he refused to come outside so they could talk.
Dixon told the Chronicle that there needs to be an effort from elected officials to educate people about lynchings in America, saying, “It is our position that leading citizens in our city should join us in condemning this behavior whenever it arises, emphasizing that this doesn’t reflect the spirit of Houston’s respect for all people of every race.”
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