One Blood: The Death and Resurrection of Charles R. Drew [Paperback]

Spencie Love (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 29, 1997

One Blood traces both the life of the famous black surgeon and blood plasma pioneer Dr. Charles Drew and the well-known legend about his death. On April 1, 1950, Drew died after an auto accident in rural North Carolina. Within hours, rumors spread: the man who helped create the first American Red Cross blood bank had bled to death because a whites-only hospital refused to treat him. Drew was in fact treated in the emergency room of the small, segregated Alamance General Hospital. Two white surgeons worked hard to save him, but he died after about an hour. In her compelling chronicle of Drew's life and death, Spencie Love shows that in a generic sense, the Drew legend is true: throughout the segregated era, African Americans were turned away at hospital doors, either because the hospitals were whites-only or because the 'black beds' were full. Love describes the fate of a young black World War II veteran who died after being turned away from Duke Hospital following an auto accident that occurred in the same year and the same county as Drew's. African Americans are shown to have figuratively 'bled to death' at white hands from the time they were first brought to this country as slaves. By preserving their own stories, Love says, they have proven the enduring value of oral history.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A well-written and extensively researched book, One Blood is replete with new and exciting insights.

Journal of Southwest Georgia History

Provocative and humbling social history.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

[T]his work is the most thorough, penetrating, and revealing to date [of the Drew case].

Journal of the American Medical Association

Spencie Love has written a moving and important book on race relations in America.

Charles B. Dew, New York Times Book Review

[Love] lets the facts spoil a good story in order to tell a much better one.

Washington Post

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press (October 29, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807846821
• ISBN-13: 978-0807846827
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #641,912 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Readable history, February 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: One Blood: The Death and Resurrection of Charles R. Drew (Paperback)

This wonderful book not only includes accurate, scholarly historical research, it tells a gripping story of two fine black families and their experience with health care for African-Americans in our society. Very readable.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Someone at Amazon Needs to Check The Ingram Review Here!!!, July 22, 2003

By 

Hugh Pearson (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: One Blood: The Death and Resurrection of Charles R. Drew (Hardcover)

I decided to look up the Amazon site for Spencie Love's book "One Blood," because I recently wrote a review of Phillip Roth's "The Human Stain, where I point out the erroneous information provided by a character about the death of Dr. Charles Drew. The character claimed that Drew bled to death because he was refused admission to a Caucasian hospital due to his race. Lo and behold I look up this Amazon site and read the Ingram review of "One Blood," only to discover that it too, has erroneous information. The review claims that Drew was refused admission to one hospital, then treated in the emergency room of a segregated hospital, after which he bled to death. Apparently, the reviewer didn't read Love's book either. That's not what she describes as happening. Drew was IMMEDIATELY admitted to the emergency room of Allamance County Hospital in Allamance County, North Carolina, where doctors couldn't save him because he was entirely too injured to be saved. Love makes this VERY CLEAR in the book. The Ingram review implies that first Drew was taken to one hospital and refused admission, then taken to a "segregated" facility where he was treated, but couldn't be saved. No!!! This is not what Love says happened. In the book she describes how it was JUST ONE HOSPITAL ALL ALONG where Drew was taken and treated. Part of the point of her book is to correct the long held fallacy that Drew bled to death due to the refusal of a hospital to admit him. Please someone at Amazon, GET THE BOOK. Then read what she wrote. Then post my review of Roth's novel, where I express my dismay that Roth got away with furthering a myth that is still well entrenched among those who should research such matters before commenting about them (or having characters comment about them).

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great insight into Dr. Drew and the "refused treatment" controversy...., May 16, 2007

By 

D. Wilhite (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: One Blood: The Death and Resurrection of Charles R. Drew (Paperback)

This is an excellent story on both Charles Drew and the power of myth in the African American community. I too grew up on the story of Charles Drew being refused treatment at a segregated hospital. Given the history of African Americans and the medical establishment, this was easy to believe, especially by those living under the oppressiveness of Jim Crow. For example, the sad story of WW II veteran Maltheus Avery being turned away by Duke University Hospital shows us why the Dr. Drew hospitalization refusal story took on a life of its own.

The book also gave me some additional insight into just who Dr. Drew was as a man and as a physician. He truly was an outstanding man who exemplified manhood, scholarship, perseverance, and uplift. If I'm not mistaken, there is no comprehensive biography of Dr. Drew that has been written outside of the dozens of children's books about him. That's very surprising to me, given his accomplishments and his legendary status in medical circles and in the African American community.

I applaud Ms. Love for writing a truly fascinating story that needed to be told, both of Dr. Drew and the stories that surrounded his death. This is non-fiction writing at its best.