Charles Richard Drew was a Black scientist and surgeon born in 1904 and died in 1950 who pioneered the preservation of blood plasma, served as medical director of the Blood-for-Britain Project in 1940, and became director of the first American Red Cross Blood Bank in 1941. He taught a generation of American doctors at Freedmen's Hospital and Howard University in Washington, D.C., was an outstanding athlete at Amherst College and McGill University, belonged to Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, and remained a steadfast foe of racial injustice. He died in Alamance General Hospital on 1 April, 1950, after an automobile accident at this site.