A civil rights activist was escorted from a North Carolina movie theater by police after insisting on using his own chair for medical reasons, prompting an apology from the country's largest movie theater chain.
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The incident occurred Tuesday in Greenville during a screening of “The Color Purple.” The Rev. William Barber II said he needed the chair because he suffers from ankylosing spondylitis, a disabling bone disease.
Barber, 60, is co-chairman of the national Poor People's Campaign, modeled on an initiative launched in 1968 by the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Barber was previously president of the North Carolina NAACP and led anti-voter access protests at the Statehouse, leading to him and more than 1,000 people being arrested for civil disobedience.
Barber said in a news release that AMC Theater management asked an armed security guard and local police officers to remove him after he refused to use the chair. Barber said he agreed to be escorted out after officers said they had to close the theater and arrest him.
Barber said he left his 90-year-old mother with an assistant to watch the film. Video of the incident shows Barber talking to an officer before leaving the theater.
“How ridiculous is it that someone cannot be accommodated as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act and that management instead has police escort me out?” Barber said in the press release.
“With all the problems and real struggles in the world, it is absurd that the managers of a theater decide that they cannot accept you and would rather expel you from the theater, which is why I prayed for them,” he added.
Greenville police said in a statement that a caller from the theater said a customer was arguing with employees and the theater wanted him removed. After a brief conversation with a responding officer, Barber “agreed to voluntarily leave the theater,” police said. No charges were filed.
AMC apologized in a written statement and said it welcomes guests with disabilities and works hard to accommodate guests with disabilities, WRAL reported.
“We are also reviewing our policies with our theater teams to ensure such situations do not occur again,” the statement said.
Barber said he would meet with AMC Entertainment Holdings Chairman Adam Aron next week after Aron contacted him. Barber said he is “confident that it will lead to just and good things for people with disabilities.”
In addition to helping run the Poor People's Campaign, Barber also runs a nonprofit organization called Repairers of the Breach, which focuses on issues such as voter suppression and poverty.
He was elected head of the NAACP's state chapter in 2005 and resigned from that position in 2017. He also spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.