Black D.C. Church Now Owns Logo And Trademark Of Proud Boys Hate Group
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A Washington, D.C. church has won the trademark and logo rights to a white hate group. The Proud Boys must ask permission to use the logo and their brand name, as the church won the rights to both after a lawsuit.
D.C. Superior Court Judge Tanya M. Jones Bosier ruled that the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church will earn all the proceeds from any Proud Boys attempts to sell their trademark name and logo. The ruling was made after the group was found guilty of vandalizing the church in 2020 by tearing down its Black Lives Matter sign. They won a multimillion-dollar civil judgment against the Proud Boys they never collected from, so the judge ruled that the Proud Boys will pay it back with any use of their trademark.
Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Terrio was granted clemency by President Trump after receiving a 22-year sentence as the ringleader of the Jan. 6 insurrection, said, “I wipe my -ss with the judge’s decision,” per The Washington Post. “The judge put a million-dollar settlement on a $40 sign.”
CNN reported that the group “leaped over Metropolitan AME’s fence, entered the church’s property, and went directly to the Black Lives Matter sign. They then broke the zip ties that held the sign in place, tore it down, threw it to the ground, and stomped on it while loudly celebrating. Many others then jumped over the fence onto the church’s property and joined in the celcelebratinggn’s destruction.”
Securing the church and replacing the sign cost almost $40K. The Proud Boys have paid just $1,500 of a $2.8 million settlement, which is now over $3.1M due to interest. The AME church was one of two churches vandalized on Dec. 12, 2020, as members of a white supremacist mob stormed through the city in protest of Trump losing the election to Joe Biden. Another church, Asbury United Methodist Church, had its sign torn off and burned by Terrio’s group. He pled guilty to that crime and was serving a five-month jail sentence on Jan. 6.
Since the riots, the Proud Boys membership has fractured, especially since it was revealed during the trials that Terrio was cooperating with the FBI and local law enforcement. He is not believed to be leading the group at this time.
“It is justice. It is karmic,” Rev. William H. Lamar IV, the pastor of the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, told The Post. “It is our victory in a long line of victories,” adding that it is part of “our unbroken, joyful resistance.” He said the church “will do everything we can to get the money. We will not stop until we are made whole.”
