Why We Choose to Celebrate and Perpetuate It

Among the outstanding men and women whose beginnings are attributed to Stevens we share the lives of Rayford Logan, Petey Greene Jr., and Dr. Charles R. Drew.

Dr. Rayford Logan (1897-1982) – Eminent black historian, editor and civil rights activist-was born in Washington D.C. He grew up in Foggy Bottom at 818 22nd St NW. He graduated from Williams College and served in WWI with the all-black 93rd Division. For five years after the war, he lived in France and became active in the Pan- African Congress movement, working closely with W.E.B. Du Bois. The movement called for black equality, an end to colonial abuses in Africa, and full civil rights for African Americans. It is considered an important precursor to the U.S. civil rights movement.

He completed his Harvard PhD in 1932 to work with his long time colleague and friend, Carter G. Woodson, (founder of Black History Month), in the writing of Woodson’s Journal of Negro History.

As an activist, Logan helped organize voter registration drives and citizenship schools in the 1920s and 1930s. He rallied African Americans to demand their inclusion in the U.S. military and drafted President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order prohibiting the exclusion of blacks from the military in World War II.

In 1938 Logan joined the history faculty of Howard University, where he taught until 1965. Like W.E.B. DuBois and Carter G. Woodson, colleagues and fellow Harvard-trained historians, Logan wrote for both scholars and the general public. Among other works, he wrote The Betrayal of the Negro (1954 and 1965). His groundbreaking Dictionary of American Negro Biography is the field’s standard reference, which continues to be revised and updated. Rayford Logan attended Stevens Elementary School and was awarded a Spingarn Medal.

*Biography from American National Biographies and Wikipedia

Charles Drew

Dr. Charles Richard Drew (1904 –1950) was a physician and medical researcher who attended Amherst College in Massachusetts on a scholarship, named all- American halfback and won the Thomas W. Ashley Memorial Trophy as the Most Valuable Player on Amherst’s football team, graduating in 1926. Drew received the Howard Hill Mossman trophy for his outstanding contributions to Amherst sports. After college, he became Director of Athletics and biology instructor at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland where he worked two years and led the football and basketball teams to championship levels.

Drew was always interested in science and wanted to pursue a medical career. He attended medical school at McGill University in Montreal, Canada where he was captain of the track team and won the all-time top score at McGill in intercollegiate track competition.

One of Drew’s instructors in anatomy was Dr. John Beattie, a Brit studying the techniques and problems of blood transfusion. Patients often died from a loss of blood after accidents or surgery before the 1930’s and researchers were investigating ways to replace the lost blood through transfusions. Although Dr. Karl Landsteiner had discovered the four different blood types and found that the body would not reject a donor with the same blood type, the problem of finding a compatible donor in an emergency was unsolved. Drew was interested in solving that problem.

Drew graduated from McGill in 1933. That year he won the annual prize in neuroanatomy—the study of the structure of the nervous system—and the Williams Prize, passing an examination and scoring in the top five in his class. He interned at the Royal Victoria and Montreal General Hospitals. In 1935, he became an instructor in pathology at Howard University Medical School in Washington, DC. In addition to teaching, he was assistant surgeon at Freedmen’s Hospital.

In 1938, he was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship to continue his studies at Columbia University in New York City. He began a residency in surgery at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and devoted his research to studying blood transfusions and the storing of blood. During his research he discovered that plasma, which is the liquid portion of blood that does not contain cells, could be dried and stored for an extended period of time without deteriorating. This great discovery was noted worldwide. In 1939, he received a grant from the Blood Transfusion Association and opened a blood storage bank at the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.

In 1940, Charles Drew was the first African American to receive the Doctor of Science degree. His thesis was “Banked Blood.” During World War II, Drew’s former instructor, John Beattie, became Director of Research Laboratories at the Royal College of Surgeons in London in charge of blood transfusions for the Royal Air Force and asked Drew to assist him in providing blood. Drew took thousands of pints of dried plasma to England and was named medical supervisor of blood for Great Britain.

He organized a system of volunteer blood donors and centralized the collection of donated blood where he processed the blood and separated out the plasma. His research in the field of blood transfusions, development of improved techniques for blood storage, and his expert knowledge in developing large-scale blood banks early in World War II saved thousands of allied lives. The project was later taken over by the American Red Cross and Drew became director of the blood bank in New York. He also became assistant director of blood procurement for the National Research Council for the U.S. Army and Navy.

In 1943, Drew’s distinction in his profession was recognized when he became the first black surgeon to serve as an examiner on the American Board of Surgery. While his life was tragically cut short at the age of 46, the techniques Drew developed for storing and transfusing blood continue to save lives.

Charles Drew was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Medal by the National Medical Association in 1950. In 1966, the Charles R. Drew Postgraduate Medical School was incorporated in the State of California as a private, non-profit, educational institution. A United States postage stamp was issued in his honor in 1981.

Charles Richard Drew attended Stevens Elementary School and was awarded a Spingarn Medal.

*Biography notes from www.essortment.com and wikipedia.

Ralph Waldo “Petey” Grene, Jr

Ralph Waldo “Petey” Grene, Jr. (1931-1984) was an African-American television and radio talk show host. A two-time “Emmy” award-winner, Greene overcame drug addiction and a prison sentence for armed robbery to become one of Washington, D.C.’s most prominent media personalities. On his shows he often talked about subjects such as racism, poverty, religion, sexuality, recreational drug use, government issues, and current events of that time.

 Aside from being a radio personality and talk show host, Greene was also a community activist, joining the United Planning Organization and founding The Ralph Waldo Greene Community Center and Efforts for Ex-Convicts, an organization devoted to helping former prisoners succeed in legitimate ways and to advocate prison reform. He rallied against poverty and racism on his shows and on the streets, participating in demonstrations during the height of his popularity, such as speaking at Georgetown University in 1968 about his opposition to the Vietnam War. “Petey” Greene, Jr. attended Stevens Elementary School.