Bishop William Barber II, a highly esteemed civil rights leader, was ejected from a screening room at a local AMC movie theater in Greenville, North Carolina. After a viral video showed the national leader being removed, the top executive at the corporate office offered apologies to the bishop and set up a meeting to discuss the regrettable incident.
According to police reports, at approximately 3:20 p.m., an AMC Fire Tower 12 employee contacted the Greenville Police Department with a trespassing complaint. Someone reported a customer inside the movie house arguing with a staff member.
Lt. Justin Wooten confirmed that two officers responded to the call and identified the customer involved as Barber.
The Yale University founding director of the Center for Public Theology & Public Policy was there with his assistant and elderly mother attempting to view “The Color Purple,” a day after it came out.
A video recorded by someone in the theater captures him seated in his personalized chair within the handicapped section.
Barber has arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis that necessitates he walks with two canes and uses a special chair, a practice he carries even to locations such as Broadway shows and even the White House.
“I said this is my ADA and they questioned me,” Barber said in an interview with WRAL News. “They said, ‘No, that’s a regular chair,’ and I said, ‘No, it’s for me because I can’t sit low. It’s impossible.’”
“Everything I know about ADA law says you’re supposed to make adjustments,” he added.
Upon setting up the chair in the screening room, a staff member informed him that it was not permitted and requested him to move to a regular house chair.
He refused — noting (off camera) that it was his civil right to be accommodated.
When the two officers met with Barber — who retired this past summer after 30 years as the…
Read the full article here
