Proud Boys lose naming rights to Black church members attacked after Trump rally in 2020

Extremist organization instrumental in the Jan. 6 insurrection has been stripped of its trademark after failing to pay compensatory damages to the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. The Proud Boys, a far-right sect of Donald Trump supporters, has lost its naming rights to a predominantly Black church after vandalizing its premises and demonstrating “hateful and overtly racist conduct” in December 2020, a court has found.

The all-male group of self-proclaimed “Western chauvinists” was stripped of its “Proud Boys” trademark a Washington, DC judge ruled on Monday. Merchandise containing the organization’s name or symbols cannot be sold without the consent of a church it attacked in the U.S. capital less than a month before the Jan. 6 riots: the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. Proud Boys chapters across the U.S. will no longer be able to legally use their name, traditional logos or emblems without the church’s permission, Judge Tanya Bosier of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia ruled.

The Metropolitan AME church may have scope to seize money made by Proud Boys merchandise being sold. Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who along with his subordinates were involved in the attack on the church, claimed Judge Bosier should be impeached. The Independent has contacted the Proud Boys for further comment. Several thousand people gathered in Washington, DC on December 12, 2020, for the “Million MAGA March” in support of Trump, who had lost at the ballot box to Joe Biden a month earlier but refused to concede the 2020 election.

A violent clash broke out between the president’s staunch supporters and adversaries which saw another Proud Boys leader, Jeremy Bertino, stabbed on the street by counterprotesters. The Metropolitan AME church, located at 15th and M Streets in Northwest Washington, sued the Proud Boys on January 4, 2021, alleging the group’s members vandalized a sign during the march. Members of the church testified that the group lept over the church’s fence and tore down and destroyed a Black Lives Matter sign erected in June 2020, a month after George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police.

According to the order, the church sought compensatory damages as part of the civil suit to repair the sign and bolster security after the attack and due to perceived “ongoing threats”. When the Proud Boys failed to turn over any money, the church’s lawyers sought to seize control of their trademark to satisfy the judgment. In June 2023, D.C. Superior Court Judge Neal Kravitz ordered the Proud Boys to pay the church $2.8 million as part of a civil suit judgment involving the destruction of property.

In a scathing order, Kravitz condemned the “highly orchestrated” and “hateful and overtly racist conduct”. In July 2021, Tarrio pleaded guilty to property destruction in a criminal case involving the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner at another predominately Black church in Washington. He was sentenced to almost six months in jail for burning the stolen flag and a weapons crime. Judge Bossier’s ruling comes after Trump granted clemency to more than 1,500 supporters charged with crimes connected to the Capitol riots on his first day in office on January 20.