One Blood

by Spencie Love

One Blood traces the life of the famous black scientist and surgeon Dr. Charles Drew and the well-known legend about his death. On April 1, 1950, Drew, then forty-five years old, died after an auto accident in rural North Carolina. Within hours, rumors spread: he had bled to death because a whites-only hospital refused to treat him. The terrible irony that helped to fuel the rumor was that Drew had done pioneering research on the use of blood plasma and had helped set up the first American Red Cross blood bank on the eve of World War II. So the story grew that the man who had saved so many lives through his scientific work with blood had been refused blood when he needed it - only because of his race. . Drew was in fact treated in the emergency room of the small, segregated Alamance General Hospital. Two white surgeons worked hard to save his life, but his wounds were so profound that he died after about an hour. Though the tale is not true and his colleagues and family tried repeatedl