Harriet Tubman biopic comes to Chatham

Local residents have rallied together to have a movie about a historical icon shown in a local theatre.

Galaxy Cinemas Chatham aired the movie Harriet in theatres starting last Friday.

The movie is a biographical film that follows Harriet Tubman as she escapes from slavery in the United States and eventually becomes a key historical figure within the abolitionist movement and Underground Railroad.

When the movie was not originally slated to be shown in Chatham, Sammi Meredith stepped in. Meredith is the head of the Chatham-Kent Black Historical Society and took to Twitter to raise awareness for the movie.

“Extremely irritating Cineplex Movies,” Meredith tweeted. “Chatham-Kent was home to many Black settlements, many of those people came here via the Underground Railroad and we don’t get the movie here – where we have three Black History museums. Sad!”

After tweeting, the community banded together to push for the movie’s release. Cineplex took notice and agreed to release the film at Galaxy Cinemas Chatham.

The movie is not sitting well with all audience members. Zoe Chance, an instructor of influence and behavior economics at Yale School of Management in New Haven, Conn., said a fictional character added to the story scared her 11-year-old daughter.

“She left the theatre scared of Bigger Long, ‘the worst bad guy,’” tweeted Chance. “The only sadistic character in the movie who was black, and did not exist.”

While the movie does have some negative attention on social media it sits at a 70 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.