This brilliant black surgeon revolutionized blood donation — but overt racism meant he couldn’t donate
Titans like Johns Hopkins separated blood on the basis of race, or didn’t accept “Negro” blood at all
Dr. Charles R. Drew was teaching at Howard University when he received a call from an old professor with a big request. The professor, physician and blood transfusion specialist John Scudder, wanted Drew to take a leave of absence from Howard and come to New York to run Plasma for Britain, the first international program for the shipment of blood products.
Drew was the first African-American to earn a doctorate in medical science from Columbia University in 1933. From there, in 1941, he became the first African-American surgeon to serve as an examiner on the American Board of Surgery. His graduate work had focused on the challenges of “banking” blood for use in transfusions. The Plasma for Britain program was an extension of Blood for Britain, which coordinated the collection of blood donations from American hospitals to aid in the war effort. But that wasn’t all. According to the National Institutes of Health, “Besides providing vital short-term aid to England,” the program was intended to “gather the research and administrative data and experience needed to launch a nationwide blood banking program if the U.S. entered the war.”
Plasma extraction is itself a complicated procedure, as the mix of proteins has to be separated from blood cells by centrifuge and is particularly susceptible to contamination.
But, as Douglas Starr writes in Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce, under Drew’s leadership, the program became “a sophisticated operation” comprised of eight New York City hospitals. Since contaminated plasma could kill recipients — it was called “liquid dynamite” by the British — Drew was careful to leave nothing to chance. Thanks to a publicity campaign, New Yorkers turned out in droves to donate blood and, according to Starr, “everyone agreed Drew had made Plasma for Britain.”
In spite of Drew’s expert management of the program and the respect it earned him, he still couldn’t easily donate blood to the initiative himself. Even though doctors knew there was no difference between white and black blood, most hospitals — even titans like Johns Hopkins — still separated blood on the basis of race, or didn’t accept “Negro” blood at all. As Starr writes, “The founders of Plasma for Britain made a political decision: They accepted blood from Negro donors, but labeled the plasma so the users would know the race of its origins.”
Once Britain began its own plasma operation, Drew began work at a plasma program for the United States Army and Navy. Its leaders deemed blood a morale issue and chose not to collect African-American blood, despite having many African-American service members in its (segregated) wartime ranks. The American Red Cross, “whose scientists publicly stated that the policy had no biological basis,” according to Starr, followed suit, and maintained their position until 1950.
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