SWANTON — Tensions are rising in one northern Vermont town as a group’s artwork in support of Black Lives Matter continues to be painted over by a man who says he has the right to show his view too.
But some in Swanton say they don’t feel safe, and more needs to be done to heal divides.
For the past two months, Swanton residents have been battling it out on art walls that have been a fixture in the community since 2015 and available for anyone to paint anything — except offensive messages — according to the Swanton Arts Council’s website.
A group of artists, including Chloe Viner Collins, have used public art spaces to show support for the Black Lives Matter movement and people of color in their community.
Generally, Viner Collins said, their art features a black fist, or themes of solidarity, but not the words “Black Lives Matter.”
However, each time a mural that shows solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, or associated imagery, has gone up, it’s been covered in white paint seemingly overnight, she said.
This past weekend tensions came to a head when Swanton resident David Hemingway, who is white, was photographed painting over a mural that depicted a white and black fist holding hands, with a pride flag in the background.
Viner Collins, also a Swanton resident, said that after she painted the mural on Sunday, she sat in her car and waited. After one hour and 22 minutes, Hemingway arrived and started covering up her work.
“The issue comes from the [art] board rules are very lax,” she said. “The rules say that anyone can paint at any time. And that makes it impossible for the town or the police to look at any of this as a hate crime.”
David Hemingway, the man seen covering up Viner Collins’ artwork, defended his actions. He said Viner Collins and her group had their turn to paint on the boards and now it’s his.
Viner Collins confronted Hemingway as he whitewashed her group’s work.
“They come over, five people and harass me and said, ‘You don’t belong here, you’re no good, you know, get out of our town,’” Hemingway said. “They come over to my back with a spray can and were spraying [the wall] almost in my face.”
Viner Collins said she did have a group of friends with her, but the confrontation was more cordial in her opinion, and although she asked a lot of questions, everyone remained 6 feet away from Hemingway.
The incident with Hemingway is not the first encounter, Viner Collins said.
“All of my art has been tagged by the white supremacy group Patriot Front,” she said. “So there’s more than one group: there are people who just whitewash it, there are people who ‘white-supremacy’ tag it.”
In June, the Swanton Police Department received complaints that the group’s symbols were painted on one of the boards located just outside the town offices. More recently, there have been complaints of people just covering up, with white paint, any symbolism related to Black Lives Matter, said Chief Leonard “Joey” Stell.
On June 12, the art walls, which have been a part of larger conversations about race in the community, were painted with references to Patriot Front, the St. Albans Messenger reported.
Stell said because of the broad rules, which state anyone can paint anything at any time — except for words, due to Vermont billboard laws — there’s no way to pursue a solution to the issues in Swanton through the criminal justice system.
Regardless, he said, the community should be doing more to talk about racial issues.
“Trying to get people to the table to solve issues is where we really should be going in every community, so that we can move forward … as a state, as a community, as human population,” Stell said. “We need to focus on stamping out hate in our hearts versus spreading hateful messages.”
A tale of two Swantons
Hemingway said he has been covering up murals with words in the past few months because that is “against the rules,” associated with the art walls. Each time, he said, he replaces it with a peace sign.
“It wasn’t that I disagree. I have the right to put my peace sign on there,” Hemingway said. “I was just doing what I do, I don’t put Black Lives Matter, I don’t put on anything else, just a peace sign. They didn’t even give me a chance to finish painting.”
Hemingway said he is not angry with anyone. He likes to paint the peace signs because he just wants peace.
“I don’t want to paint black fist. I’m not angry at nobody,” he said. “I don’t need no flags, and I’m not angry at nobody. I just want peace.”
He said he wants Swanton to go back to being the “quiet sleepy New England town” it was. He insists that there are no race issues in Swanton.
“We didn’t do nothing wrong in this town,” Hemingway said. “We’re not doing nothing wrong. We don’t have no problem with racial things. That doesn’t exist in this town.”
But Swanton resident Hilarie Santiago, a person of color, says there are racial problems in Swanton that need to be fixed, she said.
“I’ve gotten some racial slurs thrown at me just walking down the street,” Santiago said. “People have questioned if my children, who are white-passing, are mine, with a phone in hand, it seems like they were about to call the police.”
Santiago said she’s lived with her partner and two kids in Swanton for the past three years, but has lived in Vermont for 12 and is originally from Puerto Rico. She said she loves Swanton, but some things need to change.
Santiago has participated with the artists who are painting what she calls “solidarity symbols,” on the boards. The paintings help people like her feel they are seen and welcomed in a predominantly white community.
“These [people of color] are people who exist in your community, representation matters, and it makes us feel welcome when people paint solidarity symbols, makes us feel seen,” she said. “And when people cover it up, it makes us feel afraid to be in our community, makes us afraid to go walk into the grocery store because we don’t know who is around us.”
The recent conversations and events in Swanton have forced her out of her shell, Santiago said. She’d much rather be a homebody, but the things she has experienced as a person of color, especially recently, have forced her to be more vocal because she doesn’t feel at home anymore, she said.
“I like being a homebody but it makes me not feel at home to be around town and have my face be brown,” Santiago said. “Because these people are covering up, our murals under the cover of the night, or wearing a hoodie, there are white supremacist tags, it’s supposed to entice fear.”
Thinking about her kids, Santiago said she’s glad her children pass as white, but it’s also a source of inner conflict.
“I hate that I am grateful that they pass as white because their father is white. And we are a very inclusive family and we try to teach our children about how everyone’s different and everyone has the same merit no matter what their ability is or the color of their skin,” she said. “And it is important to acknowledge our differences and welcome them and everyone else’s experiences and validate them. That’s how we raise our family.”
