Bunche, Ralph

Source:

 African American National Biography

Bunche, Ralph

(7 Aug. 1904–9 Dec. 1971),

scholar and diplomat, was born Ralph Johnson Bunche in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Fred Bunch, a barber, and Olive Agnes Johnson. His grandmother added an “e” to the family's last name following a move to Los Angeles, California. Because his family moved frequently, Bunche attended a number of public schools before graduating first in his class from Jefferson High School in Los Angeles in 1922. He majored in Political Science at the University of California, Southern Branch (now University of California, Los Angeles [UCLA]), graduating summa cum laude and serving as class valedictorian in 1927. He continued his studies in political science at Harvard, receiving his MA in 1928, and then taught at Howard University in Washington, D.C., while working toward his PhD at Harvard. In 1930 he married Ruth Ethel Harris; they had three children. Bunche traveled to Europe and Africa researching his dissertation and received his PhD from Harvard in February 1934.

Concerned with the problems facing African Americans in the United States, Bunche published numerous articles on racial issues and the monograph A World View of Race (1936). He and his colleague John P. Davis organized a 1935 conference called “The Status of the Negro under the New Deal,” at which Bunche criticized the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration and the New Deal. He was also involved in the creation of the National Negro Congress, an attempt to bring white Americans and African Americans of different social and economic backgrounds together to discuss race matters. In the final years of the decade Bunche contributed research and reports to a Carnegie study on American race relations headed by the sociologist Gunnar Myrdal. The resulting work, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy, published in 1944, was a landmark study of racial conflicts in the United States.

Ralph Bunche, diplomat and political scientist who won the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize, 16 May 1951. (Library of Congress/Carl Van Vechten.)

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The rise of totalitarianism in Europe and the outbreak of war in 1939 worried Bunche, who feared that a Nazi victory in Europe would spur the growth of fascism in the United States, with disastrous consequences for African Americans. In 1941 he entered public service, accepting a position as a senior analyst in the Office of the Coordinator of Information (later the Office of Strategic Services). As head of the Africa Section, Bunche urged his superiors to approach the-problem of postwar decolonization of European holdings in Africa. His proposal was rejected, and he transferred to the Department of State in 1944.

Bunche served as an adviser to the American delegations at the conferences in Dumbarton Oaks and San Francisco concerning the creation of the United Nations (U.N.). Recognized for his contributions on colonial and trusteeship policies, he was appointed a member of the U.S. delegation to the 1945 meeting of the Preparatory Commission of the U.N. and the first session of the U.N. General Assembly in 1946. In April 1946 Bunche took a temporary position on the U.N. Secretariat as director of the trusteeship position. The temporary position became permanent, and he served on the U.N. Secretariat for the remainder of his life.

In 1947 Bunche was appointed to the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine. He drafted both the majority report, which recommended a partition of the territory between Palestinians and Jews, and the minority report, which called for the creation of a federal state. The U.N. General Assembly accepted the partition plan, and Bunche was named the principal secretary for a commission designed to oversee its implementation. With the outbreak of war in 1948, Bunche was appointed as an assistant to the U.N. mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte. Following Bernadotte's assassination in September of that year, Bunche became the acting mediator. He successfully negotiated armistice agreements between Israel and several Arab states and was awarded the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.

Bunche's commitment to the U.N. did not prevent him from speaking out against racial discrimination in the United States. In 1949 he turned down a position as assistant secretary of state, noting that he did not want to experience the blatant discrimination against African Americans that existed in the nation's capital. Bunche was appointed an undersecretary general for special political affairs in 1954. With the outbreak of the Suez crisis in 1956, he was again called upon to use his diplomatic skills in a Middle Eastern conflict, and he organized the U.N. Emergency Force that was responsible for peacekeeping activities in the region. His Middle East experience prepared him for the difficulties he faced in 1960, when he organized and commanded both the military and civilian branches of the U.N. peacekeeping force sent to the Congo. He again directed a peacekeeping force when conflicts erupted on the island of Cyprus in 1964.

Bunche continued to press for the civil rights of African Americans. Although he still hoped for a society free from racial division, the civil rights conflicts of the late 1960s troubled him greatly. He participated in the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery with Martin Luther King Jr. However, Bunche found himself under attack from leaders such as Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X, who argued that he had served white society and abandoned his African heritage. In turn, Bunche denounced the separatist agenda of the Black Power movement. Health problems, many related to diabetes, slowed him in the final years of his life. He died in New York City.

During his lifetime Bunche garnered international recognition and numerous awards for his U.N. service, including the U.S. Medal of Freedom in 1963. Although his position earned him the derision of many civil rights leaders in the 1960s, he was dedicated to the cause of African American civil rights throughout his career. By using his diplomatic skills in the service of the U.N., he promoted the cause of peace in a world that sorely needed men of dedication and ability in this area.

This entry is taken from the American National Biography and is published here with the permission of the American Council of Learned Societies.

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