Confederate Halloween display featuring KKK-like figures prompts community backlash

NAACP officials in New Jersey say they are investigating

A Confederate Halloween display featuring Ku Klux Klan-like figures has sparked a community backlash in New Jersey.

A home in the town of Jackson has been decorated with a number of controversial Confederate Navy Jack flags and ghost-like figures in robes.

“I’d like to think it’s just a ghost. If it was just a ghost, it’d be fine. But now that you have the flag up, that’s not acceptable,” local resident Doreen Koptyra told WNBC.

Al Bazel added: “That does look like Ku Klux Klan. That’s not right. If they were going to do Halloween, I guess it’d be different.They gotta get on board with today, they can’t live in the past.”

But Jeannette Benz, who lives opposite, told the station she was not concerned by what she saw.

“It’s Halloween, people put decorations out, it is what it is. I think Halloween is Halloween,” she said.

Officials from the Toms River area NAACP chapter said they were investigating the situation.

“I think it looks like a KKK outfit rather than a Halloween costume,” chapter President Bahiyyah Abdullah told The New York Post.

“Having the flag above it just added to it. It’s very unfortunate that a holiday that is celebrated by so many appears to be tainted in that way.”

The owner of the home where the display is refused to discuss it when confronted by WNBC.

“No, get the f*** out,” the man told the station when approached, adding that he had put the decorations out for “years.”

He then reportedly tried to block the display from the view of a camera crew with his SUV and showed them his middle finger.