GREENFIELD, WIS. — After some African-American residents took offense at a dummy with a black head and hands hanging from a tree in
a front yard, the homeowner who put it up said Monday it was part of a Halloween display and would be coming down as soon as he got
home from work.

"When it was pointed out to me, I can look at it now. It was fairly insensitive on my part," the homeowner told a reporter. He declined to give
his name.

The display offended a group traveling down S. 68th Street last week who called Lenard Wells, director of adult education at Concordia
University South Center who spoke about it during a radio program Monday morning.

"What makes a person feel like this is OK?" Wells said in an interview after the radio show.

He said African-Americans and the NAACP should not have to come into any community to "say this is not appropriate." He said neighbors should say, "We don't appreciate this."

"If we all do not speak out when we see something like this occur, we all lose and it reinforces that this is OK," he said.

Neighbors had mixed reactions to the display. One woman thought it was just a Halloween graveyard and wasn't meant as anything racist or disrespectful. Another found it disgusting.

Wendell Harris, chairman of the education committee at the Milwaukee chapter of the NAACP, visited the home on Sunday. No one answered the door, so he left a note. He said he wasn't personally offended, assuming it was meant as a Halloween decoration.

He said he wanted to talk with the homeowner because "we have a situation in our country now and in our city that there have been so many conflicts over race and talk of lynching that we thought it would be best for him to know that there were some people that felt offended by
that."

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