AMC Apologizes For Removing Disabled Civil Rights Leader And His 90-Year-Old Mother From Theater Over Seating Issue
deadline.comRev. Dr. William J. Barber II has sat with presidents, he’s marched with Jesse Jackson and he’s been arrested in peaceful protests for voting rights and higher wages, but his recent experience at the AMC Fire Tower 12 was new to him.
The civil rights leader, at the Greenville, N.C. theater with his 90-year-old mother to see The Color Purple on Tuesday, was asked to leave the theater over a seating issue.
Rev. Barber, 60, has long suffered from a form of arthritis known as ankylosing spondylitis. He has trouble sitting for long stretches, cannot use a wheelchair and walks using two canes.
Low chairs are an issue for him. He travels with his own chair and almost always uses it instead of the seating provided in public spaces. “My chair has been everywhere,” Barber told Religion News Service. “In hospitals, in restaurants, in airports, in the White House and in Congress.
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