Rev. William Barber

By Bruce C.T. Wright, NewsOne

One of the nation’s most prominent ministers and social justice activists has announced a federal lawsuit against a national movie theater chain following last year’s accusations of disability discrimination stemming from a viral incident while attempting to view a film in North Carolina.

The Rev. William Barber II on Thursday unveiled the lawsuit against AMC Theatres, a company that is no stranger to discrimination claims. Barber was joined by civil rights attorney Harry Daniels during a press conference in Raleigh, North Carolina.

“This isn’t about me,” Barber said Thursday in a statement sent to NewsOne. “This is about corporations like AMC who think they can treat people any way they want and get away with it. It’s about every man, woman and child who faces pain and physical obstacles every single day and the CEOs who couldn’t care less.”

Barber added: “One voice alone may just be shouting to the wind. But we’re not alone and, together, we can tear down the walls of Jericho.”

Daniels said AMC acted illegally in its actions against Barber. “AMC Theaters didn’t treat Bishop Barber like a man in pain or even like an honest American. They treated him like a criminal and used local law enforcement like paid thugs even though they were the ones breaking the law,” Daniels said. “We’re not here for coffee and conversation. We want action, not empty apologies.”

What happened ?

Barber, who is also the co-chair of the Poor Peoples Campaign and the founding director and a professor at Yale University’s Center for Public Theology and Public Policy, has maintained that he was told to leave an AMC Theatre location in North Carolina on Dec. 19, 2023, after it refused to allow him to use a special chair he brought in the theater’s section for patrons with wheelchairs. The special seat is one he uses to accommodate an arthritic condition that prevents him from using seats typically found in movie theaters.

Barber was in the theater viewing The Color Purple along with his elderly mother.
After the confrontation, AMC ended up calling the cops on Barber, who requires two canes to walk. He was accused of being argumentative.

Video footage from the incident was shared on social media and showed Barber talking to, not arguing with, the responding police officers.

“They called an officer of the law, the AMC theater in Greenville, North Carolina,” Barber says while looking into the camera. “They would not make amends to simply do the right thing. But we’ll deal with it.”

Barber repeats that he’s “not resisting” as police tell him to exit the theater and threatened trespassing charges.

Although no charges were ever actually brought, Barber said he “felt like I wasn’t being heard. It felt as though they weren’t even trying to consider making accommodations for my disability.”

Barber cited the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 as giving him the provisional Barber said he was told that because he didn’t have a wheelchair he couldn’t use his special seat.

“Everything I know about ADA law says you’re supposed to make adjustments,” Barber said before adding later: “This is just about how we treat, how we say to disabled folk, ‘There’s no room at the inn’ if you don’t come a certain way.’”

AMC Theatres later apologized to Barber, CNN reported. “AMC’s Chairman and CEO Adam Aron has already telephoned him, and plans to meet with him in person in Greenville, NC, next week to discuss both this situation and the good works Bishop Barber is engaged in throughout the years,”

AMC Theatres said in a statement. “We are also reviewing our policies with our theater teams to help ensure that situations like this do not occur again.”