Wins ban on use of name, logo it owns after lawsuit

A historic Black church in Washington, D.C., awarded rights to the name and logo of an extremist group after its property was vandalized, won a trademark case against the Hudson Valley chapter and its president, a former Beacon resident.

In a federal lawsuit filed in August 2025, the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church accused the Hudson Valley Proud Boys and Will Pepe of "unlawful and ongoing infringement" of its right to control use of the group's name. Pepe is one of over 1,000 people found guilty of invading the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and pardoned in January 2025 by President Donald Trump.

After he failed to submit a timely answer to Metropolitan's lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla issued an order on April 8 permanently barring the chapter from using the name and logo. She also awarded $75,000 to the church, which hosted the funeral of Frederick Douglass and a speech by Eleanor Roosevelt; $183,603.50 in fees to Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and $15,849.50 to the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

The judgment is the church's first against a chapter and similar lawsuits could follow.

"This is an important judgment for the church and for the residents of the Hudson Valley," said Dan Kramer, the Paul, Weiss attorney who represented the church. "It means that there cannot be a chapter of the Proud Boys in their community."

A D.C. Superior Court judge awarded Metropolitan AME the trademark rights in February 2025 as the Proud Boys largely ignored an earlier $2.8 million judgment against it over a December 2020 incident during a rally in support of Trump. Some of the group's members, during a roving "night march," leaped the church's fence to tear down its Black Lives Matter sign.

They then "stomped on it and cut it into pieces, and loudly and publicly celebrated its destruction" on social media, according to Metropolitan AME, which installed cameras and hired security guards after the attack.

Despite the Superior Court order, which prohibits the Proud Boys from "selling, transferring, disposing of or licensing" the name without the church's permission, the Hudson Valley chapter continued to employ the Proud Boys name on multiple websites it and other New York chapters use, and on clothing, hats and other merchandise sold online, according to court documents.

Metropolitan also said Pepe had not responded to a cease-and-desist letter sent to him at a Long Island address in June 2025, as well as requests that he provide information on the chapter's use of the name and the amount of revenues from members' dues and merchandise sales.

The church said it wants to "evolve" the Proud Boys name to become "associated with the church's mission of love and humanity, rather than white supremacy, hatred and violence." Last year, it introduced two limited-edition T-shirts replicating the Proud Boys logo and etched with slogans: "Stay Proud, Black Lives Matter" and "Stay Black, Black Lives Matter.

Metropolitan was one of two Black churches in D.C. whose Black Lives Matter signs were destroyed by Proud Boys who rallied in the city on Dec. 12, 2020, in support of Trump's challenge to the results of the 2020 presidential election won by Joe Biden. Weeks later, on Jan. 6, 2021, protesters broke into and ransacked the Capitol building as lawmakers met to certify Biden's win.

Police arrested Pepe six days later, accusing him, as president of the Hudson Valley chapter of the Proud Boys, of coordinating with other members by radio and moving a police barricade. A federal judge found Pepe, who was fired from his job with Metro-North in Brewster, guilty in a bench trial on Oct. 23, 2024, of a felony (obstructing law enforcement during a civil disorder) and four misdemeanors. His sentencing was canceled when he was pardoned.

Metropolitan AME is targeting the Proud Boys' money. The church initially sued Proud Boys International for destructi...