The National Blood Program of the American Red Cross

When Blood Won't Tell: Integrated Transfusions and Shifting Foundations of Race

“…And given the continual need for blood in hospitals across the nation, researchers estimated that the integrated supply would reach millions more in the decades to come. 1 Despite efforts to show otherwise, the photograph shown in Figure 1 could not contain the significance of mixing the national blood supply, of allowing black blood to travel freely into white bodies. The tension in the photograph signaled the challenge of narrating transfusions after 1950.…”