AMC Theaters has apologized to the Rev. William J. Barber II, a civil rights chief, after he was escorted from a Greenville, N.C., theater after staff refused to permit him to make use of a chair he must handle a painful medical situation, he stated.

Mr. Barber, 60, was attending a Tuesday afternoon screening of “The Coloration Purple” along with his mom, Eleanor Barber, 90. He stated he tried to make use of the chair, which an assistant carried for him, by putting it in an space reserved for handicapped seating, saying he had carried out so earlier than in theaters, at Broadway performs and even on a go to to the White Home.

He stated a theater worker informed him that he wouldn’t have the ability to use the chair, which appears to be like like a small stool, as a result of it didn’t adjust to tips within the Individuals with Disabilities Act.

Workers then summoned the Greenville police and informed the officers that they wished Mr. Barber to go away or be charged with trespassing, in accordance with Mr. Barber, who shared a video of the encounter with The New York Instances.

Mr. Barber stated he agreed to go away the theater and that no expenses had been filed. The video reveals a police officer escorting him out of the theater, thanking him for his cooperation and apologizing “for the way in which this turned out.”

His mom stayed and watched the film with an assistant, he stated.

“I simply wished to go see the film with my mom,” Mr. Barber stated.

In a press release issued to a neighborhood information station, the AMC theater chain stated it “sincerely apologize to Bishop Barber for a way he was handled, and for the frustration and inconvenience dropped at him, his household, and his friends.”

Each the assertion and Mr. Barber stated that AMC’s chief govt, Adam Aron, had spoken to Mr. Barber by telephone, and that the 2 deliberate to fulfill in Greenville subsequent week.

Neither AMC Theaters nor the Greenville Police Division responded to requests for remark.

Mr. Barber has a situation referred to as ankylosing spondylitis, and walks slowly with the help of a cane. He stated the illness assaults his joints “like a guided missile” and has pressured him to stay with persistent ache for nearly 40 years. “I describe it like that as a result of it’s a struggle to stay with it,” he stated.

He added that individuals with disabilities typically battle invisible battles that may be troublesome for individuals not residing with disabilities to grasp.

“Disabled individuals have a proper to point out up,” Mr. Barber stated. “Interval.”

Mr. Barber stated that he was grateful that Mr. Aron had reached out instantly and apologized, and was trying ahead to their assembly.

“I’ve had very optimistic conversations with him and with the police chief,” he stated, including that he didn’t imagine the police even wished to be concerned.

Maria City, president and chief govt of the American Affiliation of Individuals with Disabilities, a disability-rights advocacy group, stated she discovered the response from theater employees “simply baffling.”

“Individuals with disabilities encounter a lot discrimination each day,” Ms. City stated. “They encounter so many sorts of bodily obstacles that by regulation shouldn’t exist.”

The Individuals with Disabilities Act, signed in 1990, is a civil rights regulation that bans discrimination in a number of areas and extensively requires lodging in public locations. “And that’s what film theaters are,” Ms. City stated.

Mr. Barber rose to nationwide prominence within the 2010s after main protests towards a North Carolina voter ID regulation {that a} federal appeals court docket later struck down, referred to as it an unconstitutional effort to “goal African-Individuals with virtually surgical precision.”

Mr. Barber, a former head of North Carolina N.A.A.C.P., is a fixture at rallies, marches and civil disobedience actions. He stated that he has been allowed to make use of his chair in quite a few theaters and different locations, together with in jail after being arrested at demonstrations.