Granite Carver with Chelsea Roots
Brings National Protest to Barre
By Sandy Vondrasek

Clinton Button works on a deep relief carving at his studio in South Carolina. 1Sandy 1

A Chelsea native and granite carver is bringing a national grassroots movement to Barre November 8, hoping to reinvigorate Barre’s granite industry and to do right by the memory of Martin Luther King Jr.

Clinton Button, who now carves granite in South Carolina, has become one of the leaders of the "King Is Ours" campaign, launched in February by African-American artist Gilbert Young of Atlanta.

The campaign was formed to protest a 2006 decision to outsource to China the creation of a $100-million granite memorial for Dr. King.

The person responsible for bringing the King protest north is Button, 40, who grew up on a Chelsea dairy farm and learned his craft in a Barre granite shed.

Young and Button will travel together from Atlanta to lead a series of events (See side article) November 8 in Barre, all hosted by the Barre Granite Association.

"We’re coming up on a bus, the good, old-fashioned, civil rights way," Button said last week in a phone interview from his home in South Carolina.

How did a white guy from Vermont become a key figure in the "King Is Ours" movement?

It’s a complex tale, tough to summarize, said Button, "since it crosses lines of ethics, race, politics, religion, and financial propriety."

By way of background, Button explained that Congress in 1999 authorized construction of a $100-million memorial to King, on a four-acre site on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

A non-profit organization was formed to manage the project, and a design created by African-American sculptor Ed Dwight—showing Dr. King emerging from rough-hewn stone—was selected.

However, in February, the King Memorial foundation announced that a contract for the project had been awarded six months earlier to a Chinese artist and granite manufacturer.

Lei Yixin of China, famed for his sculptures of Mao Tse-tung, is now the "artist of record" for the sculpture though, according to Button, the final design is basically Ed Dwight’s.

(Button explained that master stone carvers such as his cousin Andy Hebert, who taught him, and Bethel’s Phil Paini, are usually hired to translate smaller models, created by other sculptors, into large, granite versions. The sculptor’s name—the artist of record—goes on the monument; the name of the carver or carvers remain anonymous.)

News of the Chinese contract led Atlanta-based, African-American artist Gilbert Young to launch the "King Is Ours" protest.

Since February, Young’s petition campaign (see www.KingIsOurs.com) has mobilized hundreds of mostly black people outraged that a memorial to the nation’s top civil rights leader is to be fashioned in a county known for suppressing civil rights. Many also believe that the monument ought to be designed by an African-American artist.

Clint Button, whose family has worked continuously in the U.S. granite industry for 116 years, joined the King Is Ours campaign this summer. Button, who said he just shook his head when he first read about the Chinese contract, was galvanized into action, after watching a YouTube video of workers in a Chinese granite shed.

"The pictures were basically 100 years ago in Barre," Button related.

There were mechanical grinders, diamond tools, no air filters, and so much granite dust on the workers’ faces their features were barely discernable.

"It was what my family fought against in the union," Button said.

After see that video, Button started researching the issue and ended up contacting Gilbert Young.

Since this summer, Young, Button and other movement leaders have worked "out-of-pocket" and on their own time, to fight the Chinese contract.

The path hasn’t always been smooth. Button said there has been some media coverage, and often the King Is Ours movement has been "hammered" as a racist one, pitting African-Americans against the Chinese.

Also, Button noted he was personally "uninvited" from a CNN interview that was to be done jointly with Gilbert Young, "because I wasn’t black."

Button, however, sees a problem in having "a statue of the greatest civil rights leader in the country carved by basically slave labor."

"It would forever marginalize the memorial," he commented.

Industry Threatened

But Button says the biggest reason he got involved is to do his best to preserve the future of the U.S. granite industry. That industry, he said, is threatened by free trade policies that have made "outsourcing" a common word and the commonly cited reason for layoffs and factory closures throughout the U.S.

"If I don’t push for this, there is not going to be a granite industry here in 20 years," he said.

Outsourcing is not the only issue for those working on the protest. Button’s extensive research has turned up alarming indications of mismanagement by the non-profit foundation formed to oversee the project.

There is another detail of this saga that leaves Button "speechless." The King memorial, he has learned, is being made of pink granite. His researches show that the Chinese pitched pink to the MLK Foundation because it would supposedly "hide the stains made by pigeon droppings."

Since joining forces with Gilbert Young, Button has been working his contacts in the U.S. granite industry. Those contacts are extensive, as Button, the descendant of granite workers, is one of only 12 traditional granite carvers left in the country. And, he has worked in both of the nation’s two granite "capitals"—Barre and Elberton, Ga.

"I brought the entire U.S. granite industry into this," he said.

In Vermont, Button’s outreach efforts have captured the attention of Vermont’s Congressional delegation and the folks at the Vermont Granite Museum in Barre and its new School of Stone Arts.

As industry involvement has grown, the "King Is Ours" campaign has moved beyond a protest movement to a creative vision—or dream, if you will.

In this vision, Button said, the massive granite monument to Dr. King would be made in Barre, under the aegis of Stone Arts School at the Granite Museum in Barre. The project would fit nicely under the Stone Arts School’s commitment to train a new generation of skilled granite carvers, using Barre’s master carvers as teachers.

Thousands of Chisels

The King monument, says Button, could be created in a collaborative process giving "thousands of Americans" an opportunity to put a chisel to the mammoth granite memorial to Dr. King—while work is in the early stage.

"When it gets close, the professionals would take over," Button explained.

Button is advocating that the granite come from Elberton, Ga., an hour or two away from where Dr. King lived.

The Stone Arts School training program could also address the fact that there are no African-American granite carvers in the country, Button noted.

Contracts have been signed and work on a monument to Martin Luther King, Jr. is already underway in China, but Button believes the alternative dream can still become a reality.

The MLK foundation, he said, has already released multiple firms and individuals from the project.

And, although Clint Button "may never put a tool" to the King memorial, he is committed to fighting for the dream of a collaborative, U.S. project.

"It could be a laying on of hands by thousands of Americans, of all colors, all races, male and female," he said.

"It would be the ultimate memorial for Dr. King."

Varied Events Nov. 8 in Barre

The "King Is Ours" event, Thursday, Nov. 8 in Barre, is going to be much more than a protest, according Chelsea native Clint Button.

The day will begin with a 9 a.m. press conference in front of the Italian stonecutter monument at Dente Park just off Barre’s North Main Street. Representatives from the media and the Barre Granite Association will be on hand, and Vermont’s congressional delegation will be represented as well.

Plans for later in the day include a 5:30 p.m. reception at the Barre Granite Museum and Stone Arts School, on Route 302, north of Barre.

At 7 p.m., Button and Gilbert Young, the 66-year-old African-American artist who started the "King Is Ours" protest, will join a life drawing/modeling class at the Stone Arts School.

Young will draw, and Button will work three-dimensionally, in clay.

Several radio interviews have already been set.

"We’re trying to bring a complete package," Button said of the day’s events.