GREENVILLE, N.C. — A federal judge has denied AMC Theaters’ attempt to dismiss a lawsuit filed by public theologian and civil rights leader Bishop William Barber II.
Read the official dismissal denial document
The lawsuit alleges that AMC employees called the police to remove Barber from a theater in Greenville, NC.
Lawyers for Barber say he was asked to leave because he refused to provide proof of his disability.
In addition to being a pastor for over 30 years and former chair of the North Carolina NAACP, Bishop Barber is the national founder and president of Repairers of the Breach and the current co-chair of the National Poor People’s campaign. Currently he is the founding director and professor at Yale’s Center for Public Theology and Public Policy and his groundbreaking book White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race And Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy has received national praise and acclaim.
Read the official filed lawsuit
Barber’s lawyers sent WCCB the following summary of the alleged incident at the theater:
On December 26, 2023, Bishop Barber was attending a showing of The Color Purple with his 90-year-old mother at the AMC Fire Tower 12 theater when theater staff confronted him and demanded that he provide proof of his disability before he could use a chair he used to alleviate the pain of his disability in the theater. Barber is afflicted with ankylosing spondylitis, a form of arthritis which causes inflammation in the joints and ligaments of the spine. Rather than recognize his condition, however, theater staff called the local police and had him escorted from the theater.
*Note: AMC Theaters has not released information about this lawsuit or alleged incident to WCCB.
