A historic Black church in Washington, D.C., is suing the Hudson Valley chapter of the far-right group Proud Boys for trademark infringement. Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church was awarded the Proud Boys trademark earlier this year, and the Proud Boys were barred from selling their own trademarked merchandise or using their trademark without the church’s consent.
“We will never, ever, ever stop until justice is achieved for Metropolitan and all of us can live safely and abundantly together,” Metropolitan AME’s pastor, William H. Lamar IV, said in a statement to ChurchLeaders about the lawsuit.
Proud Boys and Metropolitan AME
The Proud Boys are a controversial group that got national attention during one of the presidential debates leading up to the 2020 election.
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 AME, and another was Asbury United Methodist Church.
On Jan. 4, 2021, Metropolitan AME 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 July 2021, Tarrio pleaded guilty to burning a Black Lives Matter banner from Asbury United Methodist Church. He also pleaded guilty to one count of attempted possession of a large-capacity ammunition feeding device and was sentenced to five months in jail.
In the summer of 2023, Metropolitan AME won a default ruling ordering the Proud Boys to pay $2.8 million in damages, which the Proud Boys did not do. Tarrio was serving a 22-year prison sentence when President Donald Trump returned to office and granted clemency to Tarrio and more than 1,500 others charged with crimes related to the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol.
The decision awarding Metropolitan AME the rights to the Proud Boys trademark was handed down Feb. 3 by Judge Tanya M. Jones Bosier. It prevents Proud Boys from using its own name and symbols without the church’s permission.
The ruling also “also clears the way for the church to try to seize any money that the Proud Boys might make by selling merchandise like hats or T-shirts emblazoned with their name or with any of their familiar logos, including a black and yellow laurel wreath,” reported The New York Times.
Tarrio criticized Bosier’s ruling and compared the judge and Metropolitan AME to Judas.
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 Church in Washington, D.C., is suing the Hudson Valley chapter of the far-right group Proud Boys for trademark infringement. Metropolitan AME was awarded the Proud Boys trademark earlier this year.){kind=link}