Civil rights leader: Why I couldn’t watch ‘The Color Purple’ with my mother

Opinion by William J. Barber II

(CNN) — On the day after Christmas, I took my 90-year-old mother to see “The Color Purple” in Greenville, North Carolina. The outing was a gift to my mother, who is scheduled to receive North Carolina’s highest prize for public service this coming weekend for helping to integrate public schools in the state in the 1960s.

Our trip to the movie was also a gift to me. I do not know how many more years I have left with my mother. These times are precious, and I was grateful to be back home in eastern North Carolina to enjoy this movie together with her. Unfortunately, our plans were interrupted when the manager of the local AMC theater chose to call the police rather than accommodate my disability.

For more than 30 years now, I have suffered from a form of arthritis called ankylosing spondylitis. I walk with two canes, and I have to have an assistant carry a tall chair with me everywhere I go because my hip is fused, and I cannot bend to sit in a low chair.

When I was disabled by this disease as a young man, I battled a serious depression. I feared I would have to live out the remainder of my days in a nursing home bed. But my mother, a pianist, came to the hospital and played hymns while a team of doctors and therapists and swim coaches and prayer warriors joined together to help me see that, though my body was broken, I could learn a new way of moving in the world.

Looking back, I now understand that my public ministry has been shaped by an attentiveness to the vulnerable that I might have never appreciated had I not become vulnerable myself.

Today, I teach students who are preparing for ministry at Yale Divinity School. I tell them they must work hard to understand the Bible, theology, history, and pastoral practice if they are to take up the ministry of Jesus; but I also teach them there is no way to follow Jesus without learning to pay attention to the people who are broken and vulnerable in society. “Whatever you did to the least of these,” Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew, “you did it unto me.” If the image of God is in every person, theology teaches that we miss something of the truth about God if any person is excluded.

This isn’t only a Christian value; it is a foundational principle of America’s experiment in democracy. The promises of liberty and equality rest on a shared commitment to let every voice be heard — a democratic practice that requires accommodations for the differently-abled.

Though it took centuries for the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to become law, it built on the 14^th amendment’s provision of equal protection under the law to guarantee public accommodations to all people under Title III. The United States does not make these accommodations only as a concession to the demands of those who protest. We commit to it as a people because we believe we are better with the contributions of those who might otherwise be excluded.

When the manager of the AMC theater told me I could not use the chair that allows me to participate in public life, saying it was not a wheelchair, I did not challenge her simply because I wanted to see a movie with my mother. I challenged her because I know that I have carried this same chair to lecture halls and pulpits across this country; to meetings at the White House and on Capitol Hill. If I cannot sit in my chair at a theater in Greenville, North Carolina, then I know there are thousands of other people who will be excluded from public spaces in this nation. And I know what that feels like, too—to not be able to join my family for an outing or to attend a meeting because a space is not accessible.

This is why I could not simply leave when the manager of a theater told me they could not accommodate my disability. I was glad to hear from the CEO of AMC, Adam Aron, who apologized on behalf of the company and has made plans to travel to North Carolina to meet with me.

I’m disappointed that my mother and I didn’t get to enjoy “The Color Purple” together, but I also believe that democracy depends on a commitment to moving forward together. I don’t want this story to be about a manager’s mistake or my disappointment. I would like it to be about all of us, seeing how important it is to include people who might not be able to participate in public activities without special accommodations. I want to see new policies, training, and a renewed corporate commitment such that, whenever any American sees “AMC,” they can know that it means “Accommodates Me with Courtesy.”

After we left the theater, my mother said to me, “I don’t understand why people can’t just be decent?” I’m not ashamed of my disability, but I am ashamed that, at a time when we face war, poverty, and a host of real challenges in this world, someone would choose to use their power to deny a disabled person a reasonable accommodation.

Some find it easy to despair in the face of such inhumanity, lamenting that America’s experiment in multiethnic democracy seems to be unraveling at the seams. But whenever I face despair, my mind goes back to that hospital bed where I felt so alone and hopeless, and I remember what I’ve learned from my own experience: when we all get together, there is a Power greater than any of us can imagine that can show up to make a way out of no way. This isn’t only true in our personal lives; it is the good news that we need in our politics as well. When the broken and rejected come together and insist on being heard, there is power to resurrect dry bones and breathe life into a democracy that some consider too far gone.

This is the hope that allowed me to pray for the AMC manager and the police she called on me this week, and it is the hope that keeps me fighting for the heart of American democracy as we go into 2024.

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