W. Curt Vincent
Editor
In the midst of Black History Month, it’s a good time to introduce you to three individuals you likely have never heard of.
Each has a legacy anyone would be proud to own.
Each one is worth our admiration.
Each one has some kind of North Carolina connection.
And each one is Black.
Let me introduce you to Dr. Charles Drew. He wasn’t born in North Caroliona, nor did he ever live here. He did, however, die here — and the story of his death is laced with legend and fallacy.
But first, a little background.
As World War II waged on in 1941, doctors on both sides of the Atlantic desperately sought ways to preserve blood so it could be stored for transfusions. It was Dr. Drew who figured out how to do it — creating a model for a national blood collectiuon program for the Red Cross, as well as a theory about blood plasma. Each has saved millions of lives.
He also led a protest against a Red Cross policy that Black Americans could not donate blood, an outcry that forced the Red Cross to accept Black donors but segregated their blood — all at the insistence of the U.S. Army. Drew protest that policy, as well, insisting there was no scientific basis for the separation of blood from different races.
At the time, Drew was the chief of surgery at Howard University’s Freedman’s Hospital in Washington, D.C.
On April 1, 1950, Drew was driving with three other doctors to a medical conference in Alabama. He reportedly dozed off at the wheel on North Carolina Hwy. 49 in Alamance County, ran the car off the road and was badly injured.
This is where fallacy enters.
Stories have it that Drew was taken to a nearby hospital, where, despite having lost a lot of blood, he was turned away because it was a “whites only” hospital. By the time he arrived at the “colored hospital,” he had bled to death.
Many versions of the legend have circulated over the years, and the mythical story even made it into an episode of the television series M*A*S*H.
The truth of the matter was that Drew was taken to Alamance County General Hospital, where he received emergency care. But his injuries were too serious and he died shortly after. Drew did not die from loss of blood alone. The death certificate listed the conditions leading to his death as “brain injury, internal hemorrhage—lungs and multiple extremities injuries.”
Regardless of the legend versus fact, Dr. Drew’s accomplishments during his short lifetime are being felt in hospitals and blood banks today.
Now let me introduce you to Toni Stone, who was born in West Virginia in 1921 as Marcenia Lyle Stone.
Stone became the first woman to play professional baseball full-time with the Indianapolis Clowns. She went on to play baseball for the San Francisco Sea Lions, the New Orleans Creoles and the Kansas City Monarchs before retiring in 1954.
At an early age, Stone was tagged with the nickname “Tomboy” because she enjoyed playing baseball with the boys. Her mother was constantly telling her that playing baseball was not ladylike. The young girl was pushed into such sports as figure skating, swimming, track and basketball — but her interest was always baseball, so much so that she began skipping school to play the game.
The family’s Catholic priest, whom Toni’s parents consulted for help, reportedly recognized Stone’s strength as a pitcher and encouraged her to try out for the Claver Catholic Church boys’ baseball team in the Catholic Midget League, which is similar to today’s Little League. Because it was a church activity, her parents consented to her participation.
Unfortunately, the coach was uninterested in cultivating her skill, so Stone taught herself by reading rule books.
Still searching for instruction, Stone would show up and watch the baseball school run by the St. Paul Saints’ manager, Charles Evard “Gabby” Street, who was a catcher, manager, coach, and radio broadcaster in Major League Baseball during the first half of the 20th century. He once reportedly said about Toni: “I just couldn’t get rid of her until I gave her a chance. Every time I chased her away, she would go around the corner and come back to plague me again.’’
By age 16, Stone was playing weekend games with the barnstorming Twin City Colored Giants — and barnstorming was what broubght Stone into North Carolia at least once.
Toni Stone died on Nov. 2, 1996, of heart failure at a nursing home in Alameda, California. She was 75 years old.
All of her accomplishments may make her “one of the best players you have never heard of,” according to the Negro League Baseball Players Association.
In 1990, she was included in two exhibits at the Baseball Hall of Fame, one on “Women in Baseball” and another on “Negro League Baseball.” In 1993, Stone was inducted into the Women’s Sports Hall of Fame, as well as the International Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. In 1990, Stone’s hometown of Saint Paul, Minnesota, declared March 6 “Toni Stone Day.” Saint Paul also has a field named after Toni Stone located at the Dunning Baseball Complex.
In 2020 and 2021, the Society for American Baseball Research nominated Stone for the Dorothy Seymour Mills Lifetime Achievement Award.
And finally, let me introduce you to Hamilton Bradley, who became the very first black Eagle Scout award-winner back in December 1919.
Bradley was apparently such a stellar scout that he was one of two Scouts selected to represent his home state of New York at the Eastern States Exposition, a 1920 gathering of scouts in Massachusetts.
Scouts were “given seven minutes for dressing before assembly, flag raising and setting up exercises,” according to Bradley’s written account, published in the “Year Book of the Rome Council.”
Bradley didn’t cease his scouting involvement after turning 18. He became an assistant scoutmaster of Troop 2, which met at the Willett School in Rome.
His marriage certificate, dated Dec. 24, 1925, says that Hamilton Bradley married Aurelia P. Staples of North Carolina.
Bradley died Aug. 28, 1976, at the Wilkes-Barre (Pa.) General Hospital after an illness. Aurelia died in 1974.
W. Curt Vincent can be reached at 910-506-3023 or cvincent@laurinburgexch.wpenginepowered.com.