Builders of a $100 million memorial to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. have picked a Georgia-based granite firm to help line up sources of domestic stone for the monument.

Southeastern Granite Co.'s selection as a broker makes good on earlier promises to use domestic stone for a major chunk of the project, though key elements will still use imported. It also boosts the chances some will come from Georgia, officials said.

The private Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation announced the decision at an Atlanta fund-raising dinner.

Southeastern, a minority-owned firm with roots in granite-rich Elberton, will act as a consultant to the project's design-build team. Led by Angela Fortson, 46, an Atlanta schools counselor who runs the business part time, Southeastern is one of at least six subconsultants to the project.

"I happen to believe because she is from Georgia we're going to have some Georgia granite," said Harry E. Johnson Sr., foundation president and CEO.

Tom Oglesby, president of the 200-plus member Elberton Granite Association, applauded Southeastern's involvement.

"It's just great as long as it comes out of the United States and is done by people in the United States," Oglesby said Thursday. "I'm glad somebody woke them up and let them see it needed to be done."

Earlier this year, state Rep. Al Williams (D-Midway) sponsored a resolution calling for the use of domestic granite, particularly from Georgia.

"It's late coming, but I'm glad it came," Williams said.

The source of stone for the monument, planned for the National Mall in Washington, has been a point of contention. The U.S. stone industry and others have criticized the foundation's use of a Chinese artist, Lei Yixin, and Chinese granite for the 28-foot Stone of Hope. The memorial's centerpiece, it is a carved likeness of King that emerges from the Mountain of Despair.

A 30-foot section of imported granite is to be used for the Stone of Hope and two more of the same size for the Mountain of Despair.

But project officials say the remaining 85 percent — roughly 53,000 square feet — is to be crafted and quarried domestically.

Foundation officials hope Southeastern Granite's selection will help tamp the controversy and attract U.S. firms that want to supply granite for the project.

Fortson, whose father is a stone entrepreneur and craftsman in Elberton, made her pitch to project officials during their visit to Atlanta last summer.

"I put thought into action and here we are," said Fortson, who runs Southeastern out of a small office in downtown Stone Mountain. "The whole magnitude of it is really sinking in."

Her role could begin as early as next week, with the viewing of mock-ups for the 700-foot-high Inscription Wall of King quotes.

Officials with the King memorial design team said Fortson was not chosen through bidding, and they did not disclose the value of her contract. The design team is led by African-American women, and Fortson also is black. The team, according to a spokesman, is "committed to the inclusion of African-American, minority, women-owned businesses, especially those hailing from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s home state."

That, along with Fortson's family history and industry experience, made her a natural fit, project officials said.

Founded in the mid-1990s, tiny Southeastern Granite is one of few African-American owned companies of its kind. It is affiliated with the Elberton-based Fortson Stone Co., started by Fortson's father, George M. Fortson, in the early 1960s.

The elder Fortson got his start building fireplace chimneys and entrances at state parks. The retaining wall at Chastain Park, built about the time of King's assassination in 1968, is his work.

Since then, the father and daughter's customers have included the Jimmy Carter Presidential Parkway project, the city of Atlanta, Emory University, Gordon College and Richard B. Russell State Park in Elberton.

George Fortson, now 76, also hand-cut rock used in the water wall at Underground Atlanta.

"I'm really proud," he said of his daughter's involvement in the King memorial. "Any father should be proud."