Drew grew up in Washington, D.C. and was the eldest of 5 children. He was gifted in academics as well as sports, being an excellent student and excelling in swimming, football, basketball, baseball, and track. In 1922, Drew received an athletic scholarship to Amherst College and was 1 of 16 Black students who were able to graduate there between 1920 and 1929. Drew then became a chemistry and biology professor at Morgan State College. For reasons unknown, Drew eventually decided to become a surgeon and apply to medical school. Drew was rejected from Washington’s Howard University for lack of English credits but eventually got admitted into McGill University. After graduating medical school, him and John Beattie, a former professor at McGill, researched blood transfusions.
Drew continued to research blood transfusions and eventually figured out how to process and preserve blood over long distances using plasma. This caused the British government to ask Drew to act as the medical supervisor in the Plasma for Britain project. The project sent blood to British civilians and soldiers who were in WWII. For this project, Drew used laboratories to create massive amounts of plasma. Drew then created “blood mobiles” or refrigerated trucks that would be used to transport the blood.
Drew was later asked to serve as a medical supervisor for the American Red Cross Donor Service. There, he would work with the Red Cross to supply American soldiers with blood. However, his time with the Red Cross was short as he soon found out that they were sorting the blood according to race. This enraged Drew and after furious complaints about how there was no scientific evidence behind blood being different between races, he resigned from the Red Cross.
Sadly, Drew’s life would come to an end as in 1950 when he was killed in a car accident. Nevertheless, Drew’s legacy continues to live on as he was not only an inspiration to African Americans aspiring to work in the medical field, but also, a hero to those in WWII.
Wow, the part that was most surprising to me was the fact that, even though Drew developed blood banking, they still segregated blood banking. I related this to the broader birth of the civil rights movement and the increasing prevalence of the NAACP. I remember from class, that Roosevelt tended to feed segregation with his language, except for his executive order that eventually allowed blacks into the defense industry and prevented segregation. However, this was only after Randolph and the NAACP protested against being almost completely excluded from the war industries.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.loc.gov/exhibits/naacp/world-war-ii-and-the-post-war-years.html