By Dianne Anderson

Needles might be one scary factor preventing people from giving blood, or a long trek to the blood bank is too inconvenient, but health outreach worker Ingrid Green knows better.

She finds that low donations from the Black community have more to do with historical trauma.

“Stories are passed down through families about years of medical mistreatment, Tuskegee, Henrietta Lacks. The American Red Cross at one time, the blood was segregated. As African Americans, we’re skeptical when someone wants our blood. What are you going to do with it?” said Green, Los Angeles Regional Emerging Markets Manager, Biomedical Services at American Red Cross, Southern California.

Today, she said the organization has elevated its approach, and is more focused on Sickle Cell outreach.

Whenever Green goes into high schools for presentations, it’s common for teens to be bored. She found the best way to grab their attention is with a question they can relate to.

“How many of you guys think that Black Lives Matter? Well, this is one where you can actually save a life by donating blood. Your blood may be able to save someone with Sickle Cell.”

The light goes off. They get it.

Green, who is now making her foray into Long Beach, welcomes all Black organizations and churches interested in hosting local blood drives. In recent years, she said donations have increased dramatically.

“Since we started the Sickle Cell initiative at the American Red Cross, we have collected over 145,000 African American units of blood,” she said. “We collected our first-time donors of African American descent, more than 45,000, which is so great.”

That’s a lot of blood, but there is a lot of need, and there is a lot of work to be done.   The Red Cross is concentrating efforts more within the Black community as over 100,000 are now living with Sickle Cell disease in the United States.

But it doesn’t help that donations are usually not conveniently located in the community, and that most blood drives are in white or other communities.

“They’re not having drives in the Black communities where there is a large presence. They didn’t grow up seeing parents donate blood like Caucasian families,” she said.

Some of it is historically by design. In working with the community, she feels the first step to trust is admitting past mistakes.

“Until they gain that trust, they’re not opening themselves up. One challenge is to own up to the history of what happened and move from there. It was in 1950 when the Red Cross stopped segregating the blood,” she said.

Through several national partnerships, she is encouraged that many respected Black civic organizations, including the NAACP, the 100 Black Men, The Links and Top Ladies of Distinction have chapters hosting Sickle Cell outreach and presentations.

With so many boots on the ground sponsoring local blood drives, the community doesn’t have to travel miles and miles to donate blood.

“With these organizations leading sponsorship of the blood drives, they trust these organizations. You’re going to get more people involved that way,” she said.

Coming from the corporate world, Green joined the Red Cross in 2022, feeling a need to work for a worthwhile cause. She is concerned about community awareness. Many still do not know they have the trait, and those who do know they have the disease are not talking about it.

Among the American Red Cross donor base, less than 6% of donors identify as Black. Since starting their 2021 initiative, about 70% of the people who identified as Black that donated blood were not aware of their trait status, whether they carried the gene, or not.

She said the entire donor process only takes about ten minutes.

Before starting with the Red Cross, she regularly worked out with a friend at the gym, who never mentioned Sickle Cell once, although she had it.

“People are suffering from Sickle Cell and you’d never know. I worked out a lot with this young lady, we became good friends. When I told her what I was doing, she said I have Sickle Cell. It’s not something you tell,” she said.

In donating blood, those who self-identify as African American, Black, other, or multiracial can receive the Sickle Cell trait test on their blood. It is critical, especially for couples of childbearing age, because the children can be born with it.

Bone marrow transplants are the only cure, and she said without regular blood transfusions, patients suffer extreme pain crises. Blacks need blood transfusions from their own race because of a special blood marker.

The good news is that one-third of all people of African descent have CEK-negative blood, which is a great match for a person struggling with Sickle Cell.

“Because we’re less than 6% of the donor population, it’s hard to find. Sometimes Sickle Cell patients go to the hospital needing a transfusion and have to wait for it. Sometimes it’s a matter of life or death,” she said.

To donate blood locally, search the zipcode at www.redcrossblood.org

Any groups interested in hosting a local blood drive, contact Ingrid Green at

ingrid.green@redcross.org.