African-American Inventors 
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Dr. Charles Drew
Dr. Charles Drew was born in Washington D.C. in 1904. He was a very inquisitive child. He attended Stevens Elementary School and Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School and was a star athlete. When he was just 15 years old, Drew's sister died of tuberculosis. This event is his life made him realize his life's calling...to become a doctor. He received a partial scholarship to Amherst College in Massachusetts, a school with a majority of white students.Although biology was not his best subject, his grades never fell below B's and C's. After high school, he applied to Howard University but was turned down. He then went to McGill University in Montreal, Canada. In 1930, he won the Rosenwald scholarship, an award for the education of black students. He and his instructor began experimenting with plasma, and was the first person to perform a blood transfusion.
Dr. Drew has been so successful as a medical pioneer that his honor there have been many schools adorned with his name. Charles R. Drew postgraduate school was founded in 1966 because of a lack of medical facilities in the area. The institution later became a university in 1987 and was accredited in June of 1995. Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science is located in Los Angeles, California.
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