It’s Valentine’s Day; let’s talk about hate. A historic Black church in Washington, D.C., has been awarded control of the name of an extremist group that vandalized its property. Recently, D.C. Superior Court Judge Tanya Jones Bosier ordered that all interests in Proud Boys International’s trademarked name, “Proud Boys,” be given to Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in DC.
No one can sell, transfer, license, or dispose of the Proud Boys’ trademarked name without permission from the church or the court, according to the judgment. The order is a victory for the church, after it asked the court to enforce a default judgment of $2.8 million in damages and said it was “entitled to all of PBI’s interests in the Proud Boys Trademark and a lien on the Trademark.”
The judgment was originally awarded because in 2020 during a Trump rally members of the Proud Boys vandalized the church by destroying and burning a Black Lives Matter sign on the church’s lawn. It was meant to intimidate, the court ruled, and therefore exceeded the limits of free expression. Now that Metropolitan AME owns the trademark and residuals from it, the church has become the first Black institution to own the property of a white supremacist organization. In this chaotic and even dystopian time in American history, it is very encouraging when justice prevails. What say we Queer God Squad?
