A DC judge awarded the Proud Boys’ trademarks to downtown’s Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church Monday. The ruling means that the far-right group can no longer use its name, and “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,” the New York Times reports.
The church, where Frederick Douglass, Oprah Winfrey, and former President Obama have worshipped, sued the Proud Boys in January 2021 after they destroyed Black Lives Matter signs in during the mayhem that ensued around a December 2020 rally for President Trump. Proud Boys leader Henry “Enrique” Tarrio pleaded guilty to the act that July. The Proud Boys were ordered to pay the church more than $1 million in 2023 but the group failed to do so, leading to Monday’s ruling.
Trump pardoned Tarrio, who also pleaded guilty to bringing a high-capacity magazine into the District, when he returned to office last month, and members of the group marched in DC on Inauguration Day. Tarrio called the ruling a “betrayal of justice,” the Times reports.
Andrew Beaujon joined Washingtonian in late 2014. He was previously with the Poynter Institute, TBD.com, and Washington City Paper. He lives in Del Ray.
