For a second time, due to popular demand, AMC Theatre screenings of ‘Punch 9 for Harold Washington’ are being extended in Chicago. The feature-length documentary will be showing through Oct. 27 at the following AMC Theatre locations: New City on the North Side and Ford City on the South Side.
Here is the link for tickets and show times.
“We are delighted. We anticipated that Chicago was going to be the toughest market as folks are so invested in Harold’s legacy that we’d better get it right,” Raymond Lambert said in a text message to The TRiiBE on Oct. 20. Lambert is one of the film’s producers.
“So to continue is awesome, and it allows folks to see it [the way] we intended—on the big screen,” he continued.
‘Punch 9’ has sold out shows in New York City, Atlanta, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Singer-songwriter and overall music legend Stevie Wonder attended a film screening in Los Angeles on Oct. 3.
“Saint Stevie Wonder said he loved it,” Lambert said.
Originally, ‘Punch 9 for Harold Washington’ was scheduled to screen at AMC Theatres through Oct. 7. On Oct. 13, filmmakers announced that the documentary screenings were extended through Oct. 20.
The TRiiBE caught up with Lambert on April 12, days before what would have been Washington’s 100th birthday. The former Chicago mayor was born in Chicago on April 15, 1922.
“The truth of the matter is that few people are exceptional, and those people touch us in ways that haven’t been done before, and I think he’s that kind of person,” Lambert said, explaining why Washington’s story was an important one to tell.
“Harold was prepared,” Lambert continued. “He was educated and intelligent; his dad was a lawyer and a precinct captain. So it shouldn’t even have been an issue about him being mayor. He was the right man at the right time, which still resonates with people 30 years later. A person like that is unforgettable.”
Washington’s ascension to the mayor’s office was legendary. His grassroots campaign mobilized more than 100,000 new registered voters for the mayoral election in 1983, defeating Republican candidate Bernard Epton by a slim 51.7% to 48% majority.
Washington served one full term and was in the middle of a second (after defeating former Mayor Jane Byrne and then-State’s Attorney Richard M. Daley) when he suddenly died of a heart attack on Nov. 25, 1987. He was 65 years old.
Although his untimely death cut short his second term, Washington enacted transformative change throughout his decades-long career in public life.
As mayor, he opened the city’s budget process up for public input, fought to redistrict wards providing more Black and Latinx representation and created the Ethics Commission to check the power of the city’s administration.
“Punch 9” premiered in 2021 at film festivals in New York and Chicago. Lambert added that Washington’s win was inspirational for Black people and what could be if people worked together to transform government on the local and national levels.
