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AMC Theater's Juneteenth Promotion Features Sinners and 40 Acres
AMC Theaters is offering moviegoers discounted tickets for Sinners and 40 Acres at select theaters on June 19 in honor of the Juneteenth holiday. The promotion gives audiences an opportunity to screen 40 acres, a post-apocalyptic thriller starring Danielle Deadwyler, before its official release in theaters July 2. Sinners, the most recent box office hit from creative duo Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan, has been arousing conversation since its April debut and is also available to stream.
While discounted movie tickets may seem like a modest gesture, any corporate initiative that highlights racial justice—especially amid today's widespread pushback—merits recognition.
Juneteenth-themed promotions escalated in 2020 in the wake of protests against anti-Black racism and police violence. From social justice campaigns to special product lines—who can forget Walmart's Juneteenth ice cream debacle—many household brands and retailers integrated the holiday into their marketing efforts.
Just four years after President Biden made Juneteenth a federal holiday, however, some corporations are downsizing their celebrations and scaling back on diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts more broadly.
On one hand, AMC's offering is a clever tactic to lure people to the movies on a weekday that many will have off from work. Viewed against the historical backdrop of the struggle for justice that has unfolded at U.S. movie theaters, however, this promotion is also an opportunity to reflect on hard-fought gains.
For Black activists fighting for civil rights in the early 20th century, cinema was much more than entertainment. The nation's latest high tech amusement echoed and reinforced racist Jim Crow era policies, so it became a battleground in the struggle for justice. Activists approached both the theaters and the films they screened as opportunities to bring attention to daily injustices, and to demand change.
Budget-friendly movie houses known as nickelodeons became a favorite attraction for urban dwellers in the first two decades of the 20th century. The silent films they exhibited could be enjoyed by all, including large numbers of new immigrants who did not speak English. This new form of entertainment was so accessible, in fact, that movies became known as 'a democratic art.'
Movie theaters may have been inclusive to people of little means, but the color line that segregated the United States also cut through the cinema.
Black Americans who migrated to Northern cities in the 1910s and 1920s tended to meet great resistance when they attempted to enjoy the movie houses that had become part of the urban landscape. In some cases, police were called upon to keep Black patrons out. Despite the opposition they faced, Black moviegoers insisted on their right to take up space in the cinema. They organized protests against theaters that illegally maintained whites only policies, and some filed lawsuits.
Other entrepreneurs created space for Black moviegoers by establishing Black-owned theaters in their own neighborhoods. For example, the Pekin Theater in Chicago and Dreamland Theatre in Tulsa were the first cinemas to cater to Black patrons in their respective towns.
The struggle for justice at the movies did not end in the aisles of the theater, of course. Black Americans have long prioritized cultural representation in the broader fight for civil rights, asserting that full citizenship includes the right to be depicted as full human beings on screen.
Contemporary filmmakers like Coogler can practice their craft freely, while also enjoying box office success, because of earlier generations who worked to make movie theaters inclusive to Black storytellers and Black audiences. Carving out time to enjoy Sinners or 40 Acres in the theater on Juneteenth could be the perfect way to honor their efforts.
