Page 39 - Florida Sentinel 11-20-20

National
Texas A&M Student, 19, Killed While Helping His Friend Push A Stalled Car Near Campus
Naval Academy Names First Black Female Brigade Commander
Another black woman has made U. S. history last week. As the country’s first Black Vice President-Elect Ka- mala Harris begins her new position in January, so will the U. S. Naval Academy’s first ever black female brigade commander. Officials an- nounced Monday that Mid- shipman 1st Class Sydney Barber will hold the highest leadership position within the brigade for the spring semes- ter. While she’ll be the first Black woman to serve in the position, she’ll be the 16th fe- male to hold the rank since women were allowed to at- tend the Naval Academy be- ginning in 1976.
“Earning the title of brigade commander speaks volumes, but the title itself is not nearly as significant as the opportu- nity it brings to lead a team in doing something I believe will be truly special,” Barber said in a statement. “I am hum- bled to play a small role in this momentous season of
MIDSHIPMAN 1ST CLASS SYDNEY BARBER
American history.”
Barber, of Lake Forest,
Illinois, is studying mechani- cal engineering and hopes to become a Marine Corps ground officer. She created a STEM mentorship program for young girls of color and organized a networking breakfast to connect current Black midshipmen with alumni.
A student from Texas A&M University-Commerce died after he was involved in an accident while helping someone in need, the school confirmed.
Javion Thomas, a 19-year- old electrical engineering major from Dallas, died on Tuesday from injuries that he sustained in the tragic incident, according to a statement from his univer- sity.
Michael Johnson, the exec- utive director of marketing and communications at the univer- sity, told The Herald Banner that Thomas was on his way back to campus when he noticed someone on Culver Street in Commerce with a stalled car.
Javion Thomas with his mom, Tracci Lynch
"He stopped to help the per-
son. At some point after stop- ping, an accident occurred and Javion was injured, and he later passed away from those in- juries," Johnson explained to the outlet. "He was just a good kid doing something good for someone."
Thomas’s aunt, Veronica Lynch-Davis, added to a local radio station, KRLD, that the broken-down car belonged to her nephew's friend.
Despite having a back injury, Lynch-Davis said Thomas was among a group of people who were helping push the vehi- cle and that it eventually lost control and struck the 19-year- old.
Former Minneapolis Officers Who Killed George Floyd Will Be Tried Together, Judge Rules
Four former Minneapolis offi- cers on trial for killing George Floyd, will not be allowed to move the case out of state and will be tried together, a judge ruled on Thursday (Nov. 5).
Attorneys for the officers ar- gued that their safety would be jeopardized and they would not receive a fair trial if the case moved forward in Minneapolis, but Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill rejected the no- tion citing that all four of the former officers will be tried to- gether to “allow this community, this State, and the nation to ab- sorb the verdicts for the four de- fendants at once.”
Floyd, 46, was killed in May after being arrested outside of a Minneapolis grocery store over
Derek Chauvin, Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Kueng
an alleged fraudulent $20 bill. The fatal arrest was captured on cell phone footage and showed former Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin with his knee in Floyd’s neck while three other cops held him down.
Chauvin is charged with un- intentional second-degree mur-
der, and second-degree murder. Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Kueng are charged with aid- ing and abetting intentional homicide, and second-degree murder. All four men were fired from the Minneapolis Police De- partment, and are currently free on bail.
Study Suggests Attending An HBCU Could Be Better For Your Health
A new study suggests that African Americans who attend Historically Black Colleges and Universities might have a lower risk for health problems later on in life than those in the com- munity who attend predomi- nantly white institutions.
The research, published on- line in the American Journal of Epidemiology showed that Blacks enrolled in HBCUs had a 35 percent lower probability of developing metabolic syn- drome — which is defined as three of the five factors which increase the risk of heart dis- ease, diabetes, and stroke.
“We’ve known for a very long
time that the more years of completed schooling someone has, the better their health is likely to be across the life course, but there’s been very lit- tle research looking at the dif- ferent contexts in which education occurs and their im- pact on subsequent health out- comes,” Cynthia Colen who was the lead author of the study and a professor of sociology at The Ohio State University said on the school’s website, “This study really points to a strength of HBCUs that people don’t normally think about: Not only can they be health-protective, but they can be health-protec-
tive for years to come, not just while people are in school.”
Using data from another re- search project entitled the Na- tional Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent to Adult Health, which conducted interviews with pre-teens, Colen com- piled information from follow- up interviews conducted when subjects were adults. The 727 Black respondents attended 319 colleges — 273 PWIs and 46 HBCUs. In the survey, health data was also collected and researchers assessed whether metabolic syndrome had developed among them in their later adult years.
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