Ralph Bunche

Bunche's childhood home with his grandmother in South Los Angeles.

Bunche was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1904 and baptized at the city's Second Baptist Church. His father Fred Bunche was a barber and his mother, Olive Agnes (née Johnson), was an amateur musician, from a "large and talented family."[3] Her siblings included Charlie and Ethel Johnson.[3]

His maternal grandfather, Thomas Nelson Johnson, was mixed-race, the son of Eleanor Madden and her husband. Eleanor was the mixed-race daughter of an African-American slave mother and Irish planter father. Thomas Nelson Johnson graduated from Shurtleff College in Alton, Illinois, in 1875, and then worked there as a teacher. In September 1875 he married Lucy Taylor, one of his students.[3]

Genealogist Paul Heinegg thinks that Fred Bunche (and Ralph) were probably descended from the South Carolina branch of the family but notes it has not been proven. He said that the censuses of 1900 and 1910 for Detroit "list several members of the Bunch family who were born in South Carolina, but Fred Bunch was not among them."[4] He believes that Bunche was descended from Bunch ancestors established as free people of color in Virginia before the American Revolution. There were men of the Bunch surname in South Carolina by the end of the 18th century.[4] The Bunch/Bunche surname was extremely rare.[5] Several generations of the Bunch men, free men of color, married white women colonists from the British Isles, who were free, so their children were free.[6]

When Ralph was a child, his family moved to Toledo, Ohio, where his father looked for work. They returned to Detroit in 1909 after his sister Grace was born, with the help of their maternal aunt, Ethel Johnson. Their father did not live with the family again after Ohio and had not been "a good provider." But he followed them when they moved to New Mexico.[3]

Because of the declining health of his mother and uncle, Ralph moved with his maternal grandmother, Lucy Taylor Johnson, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1915. His mother died in 1917; his uncle committed suicide three months later.[3]

In 1918, Lucy Taylor Johnson moved with the two Bunche grandchildren to the South Central neighborhood of Los Angeles, which was then mostly white.[3][7][8] Fred Bunche later remarried, and Ralph never saw him again.[3]

Bunche was a brilliant student, a debater, and the valedictorian of his graduating class at Jefferson High School. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa[9] in 1927 as the valedictorian of his class. Using the money his community raised for his studies and a graduate scholarship at Harvard University, he earned a doctorate in political science.

To help with living expenses at Harvard, Bunche sought a job at a local bookstore. The owner offered him a part-time job, and Bunche ran the store to his employer's satisfaction. One day the owner called him into the office and said, "Folks tell me you're a Negro. I don't give a damn, but are you?" Bunche asked, "What did you think?" and the owner said, "I couldn't see you clear enough."[8]

Bunche earned a master's degree in political science in 1928 and a doctorate in 1934, while he was already teaching in the Department of Political Science at Howard University, an historically black college. At the time, it was typical for doctoral candidates to start teaching before completion of their dissertations. He was the first African American to gain a PhD in political science from an American university. He published his first book, World View of Race, in 1936.[3] From 1936 to 1938, Ralph Bunche studied anthropology and conducted postdoctoral research at Northwestern University[10][11] in Evanston, Illinois, and at the London School of Economics (LSE), and later at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

For more than two decades (1928–1950), Bunche served as chair of the Department of Political Science at Howard University, where he also taught generations of students. He served as a member of the Board of Overseers of his alma mater, Harvard University (1960–1965), as a member of the board of the Institute of International Education, and as a trustee of Oberlin College, Lincoln University, and New Lincoln School.

Bunche was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1950. He was the first Black member to be inducted into the Society since its founding in 1743.[12]

In 1940, Bunche contributed, as an investigative researcher and writer, to Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal's landmark study of racial dynamics in the U.S., An American Dilemma.

In 1941-43 Bunche worked in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the wartime intelligence service, as a senior social analyst on Colonial Affairs. In 1943, he was transferred from the OSS to the State Department. He was appointed Associate Chief of the Division of Dependent Area Affairs under Alger Hiss. With Hiss, Bunche became one of the leaders of the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR). He participated in the preliminary planning for the United Nations at the San Francisco Conference of 1945. In 2008, the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration released a 51-page PDF of his OSS records, which is available online.[13]

Near the close of World War II in 1944, Bunche took part in planning for the United Nations at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, held in Washington, D.C. He was an adviser to the U.S. delegation for the Charter Conference of the United Nations held in 1945, when the governing document was drafted. Together with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Bunche was instrumental in the creation and adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Bunche urged African-Americans to take UN positions. "Negroes ought to get busy and prepare to obtain some of the jobs in the United Nations' set-up," he counseled. "There are going to be all kinds of jobs and Negroes should attempt to get jobs on all levels. Some organization should be working on this now."[14]

According to the United Nations document, "Ralph Bunche: Visionary for Peace," during his 25 years of service to the United Nations, he

... championed the principle of equal rights for everyone, regardless of race or creed. He believed in 'the essential goodness of all people, and that no problem in human relations is insoluble.' Through the UN Trusteeship Council, Bunche readied the international stage for a period of rapid transformation, dismantling the old colonial systems in Africa and Asia, and guiding scores of emerging nations through the transition to independence in the post-war era.

Arab–Israeli conflict and Nobel Peace Prize

Beginning in 1947, Bunche was involved with trying to resolve the Arab–Israeli conflict in Palestine. He served as assistant to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, and thereafter as the principal secretary of the UN Palestine Commission. In 1948, he traveled to the Middle East as the chief aide to Sweden's Count Folke Bernadotte, who had been appointed by the UN to mediate the conflict. These men chose the island of Rhodes for their base and working headquarters. In September 1948, Bernadotte was assassinated in Jerusalem by members of the underground Jewish Lehi group, which was led by Yitzhak Shamir.

Bunche issued passes for United Nations personnel monitoring the 1949 Armistice Agreements.

Bunche with Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, 1966

Following the assassination, Bunche became the UN's chief mediator; he conducted all future negotiations on Rhodes. The representative for Israel was Moshe Dayan; he reported in memoirs that much of his delicate negotiation with Bunche was conducted over a billiard table while the two were shooting pool. Optimistically, Bunche commissioned a local potter to create unique memorial plates bearing the name of each negotiator. When the agreement was signed, Bunche awarded these gifts. After unwrapping his, Dayan asked Bunche what might have happened if no agreement had been reached. "I'd have broken the plates over your damn heads," Bunche answered. For achieving the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Bunche received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950.[15][16] He continued to work for the United Nations, mediating in other strife-torn regions, including the Congo, Yemen, Kashmir, and Cyprus. Bunche was appointed Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations in 1968.

The grave of Ralph Bunche

Bunche was an active and vocal supporter of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. He participated in the 1963 March on Washington, where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech, and also in the Selma to Montgomery march in 1965, which contributed to passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 and federal enforcement of voting rights.[17]

Bunche lived in the Kew Gardens neighborhood of Queens, New York, in a home purchased with his Nobel Prize money, from 1953 until his death.[18] Like many other people of color, Bunche continued to struggle against racism across the United States and sometimes in his own neighborhood. In 1959, he and his son, Ralph, Jr., were denied membership in the West Side Tennis Club in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens.[19] After the issue was given national coverage by the press, the club offered the Bunches an apology and invitation of membership. The official who had rebuffed them resigned. Bunche refused the offer, saying it was not based on racial equality and was an exception based only on his personal prestige.[7]

Bunche was never a communist or Marxist, and instead came under very heavy attack from the pro-Soviet press.[20]

While teaching at Howard University in 1928, Bunche met Ruth Harris as one of his students. They later started seeing each other and married June 23, 1930. The couple had three children: Joan Harris Bunche (b. 1931), Jane Johnson Bunche (b. 1933), and Ralph J. Bunche, Jr. (b. 1943).[3] His grandson, Ralph J. Bunche III, is the General Secretary of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, an international membership organization established to facilitate the voices of unrepresented and marginalised nations and peoples worldwide.

On October 9, 1966, their daughter Jane Bunche Pierce fell or jumped from the roof of her apartment building in Riverdale, Bronx; her death was believed to be suicide.[3] She left no note. She and her husband Burton Pierce, a Cornell alumnus and labor relations executive, had three children. Their apartment was on the first floor of the building.[21]

Bunche resigned from his position at the UN due to ill health, but this was not announced, as Secretary-General U Thant hoped he would be able to return soon. His health did not improve, and Bunche died December 9, 1971, from complications of heart disease, kidney disease, and diabetes. He was 67.[7] He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York City.

Awards

• In 1949, he was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP.[22]
• In 1950, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, for his work in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict in Palestine
• In 1951, Bunche was awarded the Silver Buffalo Award by the Boy Scouts of America for his work in scouting and positive impact for the world[23]
• In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante included Ralph Bunche on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.[24]
• In 2004, Ralph Bunche was posthumously honored with the William J. Donovan Award from the OSS Society.
• A scholarship at UCLA was named for him.[25] The Ralph Bunche Committee, in the UCLA Alumni Association's Alumni Scholars Club, is named for him.[26]
• A scholarship at Colby College was named for him [27]

Memorials

• On February 11, 1972, the site of his birth in Detroit was listed as a Michigan Historic Site. Mrs. Ruth Bunche attended the unveiling of a historical marker on April 27, 1972.[8][28]
• On January 12, 1982, the United States Postal Service issued a Great Americans series 20¢ postage stamp in his honor.
• In 1996, Howard University named its international affairs center, a physical facility and associated administrative programs, the Ralph J. Bunche International Affairs Center. The Center is the site of lectures and internationally oriented programming.[29]

Buildings

• Colgate University has the Ralph J. Bunche House which is a housing option available to juniors and seniors and can also be home to special interest groups.[30]
• Bunche Hall, named in his honor, at UCLA. A bust of Dr. Bunche was erected at the entrance[31]
• The Ralph J. Bunche Library of the U.S. Department of State is the oldest Federal government library. Founded by the first Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, in 1789, it was dedicated to and renamed the Ralph J. Bunche Library on May 5, 1997. It is located in the Harry S. Truman Building, the main State Department headquarters.
• A neighborhood of West Oakland, home to Ralph Bunche High School,[32] is also known as "Ralph Bunche."
• Elementary schools were named after him in Midland, Texas; Markham, Illinois; Flint, Michigan; Detroit, Michigan; Ecorse, Michigan; Canton, Georgia; Miami, Florida; Fort Wayne, Indiana; Oakland, California; Compton, California, Metairie, Louisiana; and New York City; high schools were named after him in King George County, Virginia.
• The Dr. Ralph J. Bunche Peace and Heritage Center, his boyhood home with his grandmother, has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places and City of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Landmarks, HCM #159. The building has been restored and is operated as an interpretive house Museum and Community Center.
• In Glasgow, Kentucky, the Liberty District-Ralph Bunche Community Center, to support community relations and cultural understanding, was named in his honor.
• Ralph Bunche High School in King George, Virginia.

Parks

• Ralph Bunche Park was named for him in New York City; it is located across First Avenue from the United Nations headquarters.
• Near Ft. Myers, Florida, historically black beaches in the age of segregation, have been named Bunche Beach [33]
• The neighborhood of Bunche Park in the city of Miami Gardens, Florida, was named in his honor.
• Ralph Bunche Road in Nairobi, Kenya, is named after him.

Schools

• Ralph Bunche elementary school, Anne Arundel County, Maryland

Several of Bunche's residences are listed on the National Register of Historic Places:

• Bunche, Ralph (1936). A World View of Race. Bronze Booklet Series. Washington, D.C.: Associates in Negro Folk Education. ASIN B004D6VKAQ. Reprint, Port Washington: Kennikat Press, 1968; excerpt in Ralph Bunche: Selected Speeches and Writings, edited by Charles P. Henry
• Bunche, Ralph (1973). Grantham, Dewey W. (ed.). The Political Status of the Negro in the Age of FDR. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-08029-1. Edited with an Introduction by Dewey W. Grantham. A version of a Ralph Bunche 1941 research memorandum prepared for the Carnegie-Myrdal study, The Negro in America
• Bunche, Ralph (2005). Holloway, Jonathan Scott (ed.). A Brief and Tentative Analysis of Negro Leadership. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-3684-5. edited with an Introduction by Jonathan Scott Holloway, A version of The Negro in America
• Edgar, Robert R., ed. (1992). An African American in South Africa: The Travel Notes of Ralph J. Bunche, September 28, 1937 – January 1, 1938. Athens: Ohio University Press. ISBN 978-0-8214-1394-4.
• Henry, Charles P., ed. (1995). Ralph J. Bunche: Selected Speeches and Writings. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-10589-2.
• Ben-Dror, Elad (2015). Ralph Bunche and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: Mediation and the UN 1947–1949. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-78988-3.

• List of African American firsts
• Black Nobel Prize laureates

• Ben-Dror, Elad (2016). Ralph Bunche and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: Mediation and the UN 1947–1949. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-78988-3.
• Henry, Charles P. (1999). Ralph Bunche: Model Negro or American Other?. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-3582-4.
• Krenn, Michael (2015). Black Diplomacy: African Americans and the State Department, 1945–69. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-47582-8.
• Meyer, Edith Patterson (1978). In Search of Peace: The Winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, 1901–1975. Nashville: Abdington. ISBN 978-0-687-18969-4.
• Plummer, Brenda Gayle (1996). Rising wind: Black Americans and US foreign affairs, 1935–1960. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-4575-2.
• Rivlin, Benjamin, ed. (1990). Ralph Bunche: The Man and His Times. New York: Holmes & Meyer. ISBN 978-0-8419-1145-1.
• Urquhart, Brian (1993). Ralph Bunche: An American Life. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-03527-8.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ralph Bunche.

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Ralph Bunche

• Newspaper clippings about Ralph Bunche in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW
• Ralph Bunche on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1950 Some Reflections on Peace in Our Time
• "Digitized materials from Ralph J. Bunche Papers". UCLA Library Special Collections.
• "Ralph Bunche Biography".
• "1927 Yearbook Photo". 1920.
• "Commencement address". DePauw University. 1956.
• "Ralph Bunche Papers, 1922–1988". Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. nypl.org.
• "Ralph Bunche" (PDF). Records of the Office of Strategic Services. National Archives and Records Administration.
• "Brian Urquhart Collection of Material about Ralph Bunche, ca 1932-1972". Special Collections. UCLA Library.