A lawsuit filed by a state civil rights and faith leader is seeking $100,000 in damages against a billion-dollar movie theater chain after a 2023 incident where he was removed from a Greenville location, claiming that he was discriminated against for having a disability and suffered emotional distress.
Attorneys for Bishop William Barber II, leader of the National Poor People’s Campaign and former president of the North Carolina NAACP, filed the suit against AMC Theatres on Dec. 19 claiming emotional distress and violation of his rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The legal action stems from a Dec. 26, 2023, incident where law enforcement was called to remove Barber from the AMC Fire Tower 12 during a showing of “The Color Purple” he attended with his then-90-year-old mother and others, who were not specified in the lawsuit.
The document claims that Barber’s assistant called the theater to ensure it had a designated wheelchair area prior to purchasing tickets to the film. Upon their arrival, Barber and an associate carrying a chair he uses to accommodate his disability, ankylosing spondylitis, were “intercepted” by an AMC employee who stated that the chair could not be brought inside the theater.