Magnificent athlete, brilliant scientist, famous surgeon and legendary teacher, Charles Drew had a life of phenomenal achievement. As a pioneer blood plasma researcher and a director of a vast wartime medical effort, he earned the gratitude of all humanity. As a Negro, he overcame cruel prejudice to win professional recognition, then turned his back on financial success to aid the cause of Negro progress.

From the beginning, Charles Drew scorned the easy path. A track and football star at college, he graduated with a dazzling scholastic record and decided to become a doctor—when most U.S. medical schools barred Negroes. Accepted at McGill University in Canada, living often on the verge of starvation, he earned his M.D. and his certification as surgeon. His way to success was clear—if only, with his fair skin, he would try to pass for white. Instead he returned to his home in Washington, D.C. as a Negro surgeon and teacher. 

Soon a grant from the Rockefeller Institute took him to New York. There his experiments with blood plasma made a vital breakthrough—just in time to save countless lives in World War II. But as director of the plasma program, he had to watch Negro blood being segregated from white. Rather than be a party to this medical crime, he resigned and returned to Howard University. There he would train a new generation of Negro doctors and surgeons, demanding of them the same standards he had set for himself.

Courageous and self-sacrificing, Charles Drew never faltered from his mission—until a tragic accident cut his life short. His memory remains alive, in the discoveries he gave to mankind, and in the work of the outstanding Negro men of medicine to whom he dedicated his genius.

From the book