Mario Bowler Sr., created Juneteenth Joy to celebrate Black culture while recognizing the success of Black people.
June 3, 2022, 3:16 PM EDT
There was a wave of anger from Black Twitter users last month when Walmart released its Juneteenth-themed ice cream, with a flavor created by the New York-based company Balchem. Spotting a trademark symbol for Juneteenth on the product’s label, many on social media criticized both companies for trying to capitalize off Black culture. But what got missed in the uproar was a simple fact: Someone else had claimed the term before any of the major companies could. That person was Mario Bowler Sr., an assistant director at his alma mater, Lincoln University, a historically Black university in Pennsylvania. When Biden declared Juneteenth a national holiday last year, Bowler said one of his first thoughts was that the holiday would be exploited by those taking advantage of it with “ill intention,” which led him to apply for a trademark.
Bowler, who had been attending Black business conventions for years and toyed with establishing a business around Black food and culture, filed a trademark application for “Juneteenth Joy” last summer. Not only does the family-owned business sell gourmet popcorn, candles and mints that symbolize the history and collective achievements of Black people, Juneteenth Joy also aspires to give back to the community by funding scholarships and university projects for future Black leaders, while shouting out milestones like new businesses or book releases on social media.
Mario Bowler with his wife, Stephanie, and their son, Mario Jr.
Courtesy Mario Bowler
“We wanted to take a protective stance — establish the business, establish a brand where we could recycle dollars and also professionally develop some scholarships for students who want to attend HBCUs,” said Bowler, whose wife and son also graduated from historically Black colleges. Ticora Davis, a trademark attorney and founder of The Creator’s Law Firm, said that trademark symbols are used to indicate that a company has filed a trademark application, or that they intend to file one.
While it is not clear if Balchem shared a license agreement with Walmart’s Great Value brand for the Juneteenth ice cream, Balchem’s trademark application had been blocked by Bowler, who was already in the process of trademarking “Juneteenth Joy,” she explained on Instagram. Companies can still display a trademark symbol for their products even if their application is still being processed, which may be why the ice cream has a trademark symbol despite being blocked by Bowler’s existing filing, Davis told NBC News.
Bowler and Balchem are not the only entities to file trademark applications involving the word Juneteenth. According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, dozens of other filings using the term exist, including “Juneteenth Everyday,” “Big Poppa Juneteenth,” and “Juneteenth Music Entertainment.”
However, most of the companies with Juneteenth trademark applications seem to be Black-owned businesses, as opposed to Balchem, which prompted some like Davis to express concern that Walmart’s Juneteenth-themed ice cream is an example of a company profiting off of Black culture.
The Black community is “often looked at by large corporations as cash cows,” Davis told NBC News. “If someone can exclusively have control over a particular product that obviously is going to be marketed primarily to the African-American community, that is going to be viewed as a huge financial incentive.”
Source:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/one-black-leader-sees-trademarking-juneteenth-protection-black-culture-rcna31749
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