Charles Richard Drew was born June 3, 1904, in Washington, D.C. He attended Amherst College on a scholarship, earning MVP honors in football and graduating in 1926.
Drew earned a Rockefeller fellowship in 1938 to study at Columbia University and discovered that the plasma in blood could be dried and stored without degrading. He used this discovery to begin “banking blood” for later use.
Drew earned a doctor of science in 1940, becoming the first black to receive the degree. During World War II, he was named medical supervisor of blood for Britain, and his development of “bloodmobiles” was credited with saving the lives of thousands of soldiers.
The American Red Cross took over Drew’s operation in America and named him the director of the first Red Cross blood bank in 1941. At the time, however, blood from blacks and whites was segregated, and Drew resigned in protest of such discrimination.
Drew died in 1950 at age 45, after a car accident.

— Michael J. Kleckner