1940

Surgeon and researcher Charles Drew developed methods to process and preserve blood plasma that made large-scale blood banking feasible, saving countless lives in World War II. He directed the first major US blood bank project and the British Blood for Britain program before being forced out of the American Red Cross due to its racially segregated blood policy.

Wright's brutal naturalist novel about Bigger Thomas, a young Black man on Chicago's South Side, became the first novel by a Black author selected by the Book-of-the-Month Club and sold 250,000 copies in three weeks. It forced a national conversation about the psychological damage of racism that had no precedent in American letters.

Surgeon Charles Drew's Columbia University doctoral research produced methods for separating and preserving blood plasma at scale, making mass blood banking feasible. He directed Blood for Britain — the first large-scale blood bank program — and then the American Red Cross blood bank, before being forced out when the military ordered racial segregation of blood supplies.

McDaniel won Best Supporting Actress for her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind at the 12th Academy Awards. She and her escort were seated at a segregated table at the rear of the Ambassador Hotel ballroom, separated from her white co-stars. Her win broke a barrier even as the ceremony itself enforced Jim Crow.

Charles White, one of the most important figurative artists of the 20th century, completed his WPA-commissioned mural History of the Negro Press in 1940, establishing him as a leading voice in socially conscious Black art. His monumental charcoal and oil works depicting Black laborers, activists, and historical figures influenced generations of artists and were central to both the Chicago Black Renaissance and later movements.

Elizabeth Catlett won first prize in sculpture at the 1940 Chicago American Negro Exposition for her limestone 'Negro Mother and Child,' her master's thesis at the University of Iowa, where she studied under Grant Wood. The award inaugurated a career that made her one of the foremost sculptors of the twentieth century and a foundational figure in Black feminist visual art.

Charles White painted 'There Were No Crops This Year' in 1940 as part of his socially committed muralist practice documenting Black labor, history, and dignity. Trained at the Art Institute of Chicago, White was a key figure in the Black Chicago Renaissance and worked with the Illinois Federal Art Project to bring Black history to public spaces. His monumental figurative style influenced generations of artists.

Drew's work on blood plasma storage saves countless lives.

The first African American to win an Oscar, for Gone with the Wind.

A searing bestseller reshapes American literature on race.

Becomes the first African American general officer in the U.S. armed forces.

His truck refrigeration unit (later Thermo King) transforms how food is transported.