Ralph Johnson Bunche
1904-1971

Bunche, Ralph Johnson (b. August 7, 1904, Detroit, Mich.; d. December 9, 1971, New York, N.Y.), American diplomat and political scientist whose role as the "architect" of United Nations peacekeeping operations lead to his winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950, the first black American so honored.

Ralph Bunche spent his early years with his parents in Detroit, Michigan and Albuquerque, New Mexico. He attributed his achievements to the influence of his maternal grandmother, with whom he lived in Los Angeles, California after he was orphaned at age 13. Lucy Johnson not only insisted that her grandson be self-reliant and proud of his race, but also that he, a high school valedictorian, go to college.

Bunche enrolled at the University of California at Los Angeles and, after graduating summa cum laude in 1927, entered graduate school at Harvard University. The first black American to earn a Ph.D. in political science from an American university, Bunche won the prize for the outstanding doctoral thesis in the social sciences in 1934. He conducted his postdoctoral research on African colonialism at Northwestern University, the London School of Economics, and the University of Cape Town, where he defied the South African government's objections to hosting a black scholar.

While still a graduate student, Bunche established himself as a professor and as an activist for civil rights. In 1928, he joined the faculty of Howard University in Washington, D.C., where he founded and chaired the political science department. Bunche expressed his commitment to racial integration and to economic improvement for workers during his years at Howard by participating in civil rights protests and in the establishment of the National Negro Congress in 1936. From 1938 to 1940, Bunche collaborated with Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal on the research for Myrdal's massive study of American race relations, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944).

After years as a scholar of international politics, Bunche assumed a more active role during World War II. In 1941, he left Howard and joined the Office of Strategic Services (the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency) where he specialized in African affairs. Bunche moved to the State Department in 1944, and, as the first African American to run a departmental division of the federal government, continued to work on Africa and on colonial issues.

Bunche's association with the United Nations (UN) also began in 1944. That year he participated in the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, which laid the groundwork for the UN Charter signed in San Francisco a year later. In 1946, Bunche went to work fulltime for the UN at the request of the organization's first Secretary General, Trygve Lie. From 1947 to 1954, he served as the Principal Director of the Department of Trusteeship and Information from Non-Self-Governing Territories, a post that allowed him to assist with the process of decolonization.

In 1955, Bunche was appointed Undersecretary for Special Political Affairs. In that capacity he oversaw UN peacekeeping operations in some of the most heated conflicts around the world. As director of UN activities in the Middle East during and after the Suez Crisis of 1956, Bunche broadened the organization's peacekeeping role with the creation of the United Nations Emergency Force. Additionally, Bunche represented the UN during crises in the Republic of the Congo, Cyprus, India, Pakistan, and Yemen. His successor, Sir Brian Urquhart, described Bunche as "the original principal architect" of the concept of international peacekeeping.

Despite the demands of an international career that lasted until just before his death, Bunche fulfilled extensive academic and civil rights commitments at home. His contributions as a scholar were recognized in 1953, when Bunche was elected the first black president of the American Political Science Association. A long-time member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) board, Bunche won its Spingarn Medal in 1950. He also acted as an unofficial adviser to several civil rights organizations and joined Martin Luther King, Jr, in the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery Voting Rights March. In 1963, President Kennedy awarded Bunche the nation's highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom. A year after his 1970 retirement from the U.N., Bunche died in New York.

Contributed By:
Lawrie Balfour