JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (WJHL) - East Tennessee State University (ETSU) unveiled five bronze sculptures on Saturday to honor the five students who integrated the university in the 1950s.
The monument was commissioned after the Borchuck Plaza Memorial Fountain was damaged by an Arctic blast. It honors ETSU's first African American students: Eugene Caruthers, Elizabeth Watkins Crawford, Clarence McKinney, George L. Nichols and Mary Luellen Owens Wagner.
Austen Brantley, an artist from Detroit, Michigan, was selected from a group of finalists to create the monument for the university.
He said he's honored to have been chosen to create the sculpture that captures an important piece of the university's history.
"I think it's about legacy," Brantley said. "What we leave behind. It's really impor

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