WASHINGTON (RNS) — A ancient Dim church whose Dim Lives Matter signal turned into once destroyed by people of the extremist community Proud Boys is now selling T-shirts using the community’s value, after the congregation received the Proud Boys trademark as share of a yearslong comely dispute.
“Maintain Proud, Maintain Dim” and “Maintain Proud, Dim Lives Matter,” read the shirts, which the church, Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Washington, placed on sale on its web location this week. All proceeds from sales trek to the church’s Crew Justice Fund, whose reason will doubtless be printed further in the “coming weeks,” in accordance with the church’s location.
The church’s pastor, the Rev. William H. Lamar IV, stated in a text to RNS Wednesday (Feb. 12) that the bother turned into once an try to “turn sinful to precise.”
“For the first time in our nation’s historical past, a Dim institution owns property of a white supremacist community,” reads the commentary on the church’s web location. “Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church now owns the authentic rights to the Proud Boys trademark, stripping them of the very name they rallied underneath. This also methodology that any cash the Proud Boys makes from using the trademark may presumably perhaps perhaps also just peaceable be paid to Metropolitan to aid satisfy the multi-million-greenback default judgment.”
The sale of the shirts is the most modern chapter in a yearslong comely saga relationship aid to December 2020. In days earlier than the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol, rampaging people of the Proud Boys tore Dim Lives Matter banners from the doorways and fences of several church buildings in the nation’s capital and location one on fire in the avenue.
After Metropolitan AME quickly erected a brand new edition of their signal that read “Dim Lives Matter. Nowadays, tomorrow, and at all times,” the congregation filed suit against the Proud Boys. A judge ruled in the church’s settle on in 2023 and ordered the extremist community to pay $2.8 million in compensation. When the Proud Boys didn’t comply, the church legally pursued the extremist community’s trademark and turned into once awarded it earlier this month.
The Rev. William H. Lamar IV, entrance, leads a Palm Sunday provider on the Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, Sunday, March 24, 2024. (AP Recount/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades)
“We determined that in repeat to be made total, in repeat for justice to be served, that we are going to trek after their trademark, because that is precious,” Lamar told RNS in an interview ideal week. “They use it for recruiting, they use it for commerce. We are due and owed the cash from the judgment, and they’re going to no longer defy the regulations with out our persevering with to press for justice to be served.”
The Proud Boys, a loose affiliation of some distance-comely chapters across the nation, are known for their fervent improve of President Donald Trump and for using violence against these they gape as liberal adversaries. Lots of enjoy claimed non secular inspiration for their actions, with one chief evaluating Jesus’ crucifixion to people of the community “sacrificing ourselves for our nation.”
The trademark ruling came quickly after Trump issued a blanket pardon to Proud Boys who participated in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, along with their purported chief, Enrique Tarrio, who turned into once arrested earlier than Jan. 6 and sentenced to higher than five months in jail in 2021 for charges linked to church vandalism and possession of a excessive-potential journal.
Tarrio turned into once later chanced on guilty of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 22 years in jail linked to the Capitol assault nonetheless turned into once launched from jail ideal month following the president’s pardon.
Lamar voiced frustration with the pardoning of Tarrio and varied Proud Boys, nonetheless stated it turned into once in line with the nation’s long historical past of white supremacy.
President Donald Trump indicators an govt repeat pardoning about 1,500 defendants charged in the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol in the Oval Place of job of the White Apartment, Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington. (AP Recount/Evan Vucci)
“The United States is being The United States,” he stated. “The United States says there had been no rights a Dim person had that a white man turned into once sure to admire. The United States refused to let diminutive Dim kids trek to university. The United States has sponsored violence to discontinue its political work, each domestically and out of the country, and folks that had been violent against us had been pardoned because here’s The United States. Know where it’s possible you’ll presumably perhaps additionally presumably be, and fight to make a decision up this command what it says it’s miles, nonetheless by no methodology has been.”
The comely efforts of his church, Lamar stated, decide up obvious the “Dim prophetic tradition is alive,” explaining, “we operate from admire and justice and a perception that every human being is made in the image and likeness of God.”
He added: “The United States does whatever it’ll to retain us from getting energy, nonetheless we won’t discontinue.”
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