Charles R. Drew

Charles Richard Drew was a very famous and innvative surgeon and educator. He helped to create two of the larges blood banks in the world. not only did he create two of the largest bood banks, he developed a technique of plasma storage. This development is so significant because he helped to save the lives of hundreds of sodiers in World War Ii.

Charles Drew was born on June 3, 1904 in Washington, D.C. He was the eldest of five children born to Thomas, carpet layer, and Nora Burrell Drew, who was a school teacher. In his school years, Charles excelled in athletics and academics alike. He won four swimmung medals by the time he was eight years old. He attended Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, where he won the James E. Walker Memorial Medal two consecutive years for his excellence i sports.

After graduation from high school, Drew attended Amherst College in Massachusetts on an athletic scholarship. He was named an all-American halfback and won the Thomas W. Ashley Memorial Trophy as the most Valuable Player on the team He would be only one of sixteen Black students to graduate from Amherst during the years of 1920 to 1929. In 1926 he graduated and received the Howard Hill Mossman trophy due t his athletic excellence. Upon graduation, Charlesa wanted to go to medical school, but his funds were severely

limited, so Drew took a job as the Director of Athletics and a biology professor at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. He worked there for two years and led the football and basketball teams to championships.