Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, which was recently awarded the trademark of the far-right group Proud Boys, is using that trademark to sell t-shirts that say, “Stay Proud, Stay Black” and “Stay Proud, Black Lives Matter.” Rev. William H. Lamar IV said his church will not be intimidated and will “use this evil symbol to make some good in the world.”
“We will not allow intimidation, fascism, white Christian nationalism to win the day,” said Lamar in a conversation with ChurchLeaders. “We will continue to do the work of our own Black prophetic tradition, which is a tradition that centers the joy and humanity of all persons, that has never been segregated, never been exclusive, never been extractive, never been oppressive.”
“We continue to lift that way of being Christian together amidst other Christianities in the United States that would exclude and even use violence,” he added.
Metropolitan AME Pastor: Church Leaders Must Choose Between the ‘Gospel of Jesus or the Empire of America’
The Proud Boys are a controversial group that got national attention during a debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden prior to the 2020 presidential election. During that debate, Trump said he would be willing to denounce white supremacy but did not do so. When Biden named the Proud Boys as a group Trump should denounce, Trump made the comment, “Stand back and stand by.”
After that debate, the Proud Boys posted in their Telegram channel, “Standing down and standing by sir,” and also created t-shirts, some of which featured the Proud Boys logo of a yellow wreath around the initials “PB” over a black background. The shirts had phrases including “Proud Boys Standing By” and “Stand Back and Stand By.”
On Dec. 12, 2020, members of the Proud Boys were filmed destroying Black Lives Matter signs belonging to churches following a “stop the steal” event in Washington, D.C. One of those churches was Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church.
On Jan. 4, 2021, Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church sued the Proud Boys “for engaging in acts of terror and vandalizing church property in an effort to intimidate the Church and silence its support for racial justice.” The church requested damages and a jury trial. Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and other Proud Boys members were later convicted of seditious conspiracy related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
In the summer of 2023, Metropolitan AME Church won a default ruling ordering the Proud Boys to pay $2.8 million in damages, which the Proud Boys did not do. Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was serving a 22-year prison sentence when President Donald Trump took office and granted clemency to Tarrio and more than 1,500 others charged with crimes related to the Jan. 6 Capitol assault.
On Feb. 3, Judge Tanya M. Jones Bosier awarded Metropolitan AME Church the Proud Boys trademark, thereby preventing the Proud Boys from selling their own merchandise or using their trademark without the church’s consent.
