Dr. Charles Drew, (1904-1950), was a renowned surgeon, teacher, and researcher.

He was responsible for founding two of the world's largest blood banks.

Because of his research into the storage and shipment of blood plasma - blood without cells - he is credited with saving the lives of hundreds of Britons during World War II.

He was director of the first American Red Cross effort to collect and bank blood on a large scale.

In 1933 Drew graduated from McGill with his Medical Degree and Master of Surgery degree.

Drew chose to attend McGill in the 1930s in part to avoid the racism he expected to encounter in many American universities.

He interned at the Royal Victoria Hospital and finished his residency at Montreal General.

Because of his father's death in 1934, Drew decided to return to Washington, D.C., to take care of his family.

In 1935 he accepted a position to teach pathology at Howard University Medical School.

In 1936, he obtained a one-year residency at Freedmen's Hospital in Washington, D.C.

In 1941, he resigned as assistant director of America's national blood banking program when the U.S. War Department insisted on the segregation of "black" and "white" blood.

Drew decried the move as "indefensible." He later campaigned against regulations that barred black doctors from joining local chapters of the American Medical Association.

In 1942, a year after he was made a diplomat of surgery by the American Board of Surgery at Johns Hopkins University, he became the first African American surgeon to serve as an examiner on the board.

Dr. Drew eventually became medical director of Freedman's Hospital and head of surgery at Howard, where he was an influential and beloved teacher.

Director of the Blood for Britain project that supplied plasma to American and British soldiers, Drew helped introduce improved techniques for storing and distributing plasma that became standard after the war.