Programs and Events

Ralph J. Bunche (1904 - 1971)

African-American History Month, February, 2007

Ralph J(ohnson) Bunche

1904-1971

Nationality: American
Ethnicity: Black
Source: Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2003.


"Sidelights"

The highest ranking American official in the United Nations and the first black recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, Ralph J. Bunche was "an ideal international civil servant, a black man of learning and experience open to men and ideas of all shades, " according to Robert D. McFadden of the New York Times. For his leading role in negotiating peace talks between Arab Israeli states in 1949 and his direction of numerous peace-keeping forces around the world, Bunche is considered one of the most significant American diplomas of the twentieth century.

Born in Detroit in 1904, Bunch moved to Los Angeles at the age of thirteen upon the death of his parents. After graduating from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1927 and receiving his master's degree in government at Harvard University the following year, he began teaching at the all-black Howard University in Washington, DC, soon becoming the head of the political science department there. He returned to Harvard where he obtained a doctorate in government and international relations in 1934. His later postdoctoral work in anthropology and colonial policy led to worldwide travel, field work in Africa, and completion of his 1937 book A World View of Race. Concerned with racial problems, Bunche went on to work with Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal from 1938 to 1940 surveying the conditions of the Negro in America. Their interview work in the South--which caused them to be chased out of some Alabama towns and almost lynched by a mob of angry whites--led to the publication of Myrdal's widely acclaimed 1944 An American Dilemma, a massive study of race relations.

Bunche eventually became known as an expert on colonial affairs. During World War II he served as a specialist in African and Far Eastern affairs for the Office of Strategic Services before moving to the U.S. State Department, where he soon became associate chief of its Division of Dependent Area Affairs. He was the first black to hold a desk job in the department. For his expertise on trusteeship, Bunche was recommended by Secretary-General Trygve Lie to direct the Trusteeship Division at the United Nations in 1947. Later that year the diplomat was appointed special assistant to the Secretary-General's Special Committee on Palestine, and in 1948 he became head of the Palestine Commission when its original appointee, Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden, was assassinated. Bunche consequently was faced with the great challenge of continuing cease-fire talks between the long-time fighting Arab and Israeli nations.

"As it turned out, " commented Homer Metz of New Review, "he was exactly suited for the difficult task of bringing Arabs and Jews together." Hailed for his endless patience, sensitivity, and optimism, Bunche, after eighty-one days of negotiations on the island of Rhodes, worked out the "Four Armistice Agreements" which resulted in an immediate cessation of the hostilities between the two combatants. "The art of his compromise, " lauded McFadden, "lay in his seemingly boundless energy and the order and timing of his moves." A writer for Time further praised the diplomat: "It required painstaking, brilliant diplomacy to bring the Arabs and Israelis together on the island of Rhodes; Bunche's forceful personality... helped to keep them there." Garnering worldwide praise for his successful peace-keeping efforts, Bunche won the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first black recipient of the coveted award.

Bunche did not consider his work on Rhodes, however, his most fulfilling mission. McFadden quoted Bunche from a 1969 interview: " `The Peace Prize attracted all the attention, but I've had more satisfaction in the work I've done since.' " For example, the statesman went on to conduct peace forces in the Congo, Yemen, Cyprus, India, and Pakistan, and he regarded his work in the Suez area of Egypt--where he organized and directed the deployment of a 6, 000-man neutral force which maintained peace there from 1956 to 1967--as his most satisfying accomplishment. About that mission, Bunche was quoted in Time: " `For the first time ... we have found a way to use military men for peace instead of war.'"

Bunche's peace-keeping efforts for the United Nations soon earned the diplomat the position of undersecretary in 1955, the highest post held by an American in the world organization. And by the time he became undersecretary-general in 1967 (the post he held until his retirement in 1971), Bunche's "diplomatic skills--a masterwork in the practical application of psychology--[had] became legendary at the United Nations, " noted McFadden. But the international civil servant was not only valuable to the United Nations; Bunche was considered an inspiration to millions of Americans and was what Newsweek called "the foremost Negro of his generation--the distinguished symbol of how far a black man could rise in the Establishment." Furthermore, concluded Time, "Bunche had achieved a unique status: a black without color and an American who belonged to all the nations." His book Peace and the United Nations appeared in 1952, and The Political Status of the Negro in the Age of FDR--a collection of more than five hundred interviews conducted in the American South--was published posthumously in 1973.

Bunche spent the last three months of 1937 traveling in South Africa as part of an around-the-world research trip financed by the Social Science Research Council. He took extensive research notes on what he saw there; these notes were later edited by Robert R. Edgar and published as An African-American in South Africa: The Travel Notes of Ralph J. Bunche. As Edgar mentions, Bunche provided one of the few "outsider" accounts of South Africa by a black person. Indeed, Bunche had considerable difficulty in securing permission to enter South Africa, though he was apparently relatively well treated during his sojourn there, probably because he was an American black. As Edgar notes, Bunche was particularly interested in the impact of segregation on black life. Hence, he devoted most of his attention to conversations with East Indians, Coloureds (persons of mixed-race ancestry), and black Africans. Bunche for the most part allowed the facts to speak for themselves, but occasionally he permitted himself an unsparing conclusion. "South Africa, " he wrote on December 9, 1937, "is an entire


PERSONAL INFORMATION

Family: Born August 7, 1904, in Detroit, MI; died after a long series of illnesses, December 9, 1971, in New York, NY; son of Fred (a barber) and Olive Agnes (a musician; maiden name Johnson) Bunche; married Ruth Ethel Harris, June 23, 1930; children: Ralph, Jr., Joan, Jane (Mrs. Burton Pierce; died in 1966). Education: University of California, Los Angeles, B.A. (summa cum laude), 1927; Harvard University, M.A., 1928, Ph.D., 1934; post-doctoral study at Northwestern University, 1936, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, 1937, and Capetown University, 1937. Politics: Independent. Religion: Nonsectarian. Memberships: American Political Science Association (member of executive council; president, 1953-54), National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (member of board of directors, c. 1949-71), William Allen White Committee, Phi Beta Kappa.


AWARDS

New York's Town Hall Distinguished Service Award, 1949; awarded citation by the American Association for the United Nations, 1949, for "distinguished and unselfish service in advancing the ideas of the United Nations"; Spingarn Award of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1949, and the Nobel Peace Prize, 1950, both for negotiating the 1949 armistice between Arab and Israeli states; One World Award; Franklin D. Roosvelt Four Freedoms Award from Four Freedoms Foundation, Inc.; Medal of Freedom, 1963; Ozias Goodwin fellowship from Harvard University, Rosenwald Field fellowship, and Social Science Research Council fellowship for anthropology and colonial policy; more than fifty honorary degrees from colleges and universities.


CAREER

Howard University, Washington, DC, instructor, 1928, assistant professor and department chair, beginning in 1929, special assistant to the president of the university, 1931-32, professor of political science, 1937-42; staff member serving as chief aide to Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal at Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1938-40; Office of the Coordinator of Information (later Office of Strategic Services), Washington, DC, senior social science analyst, beginning in 1941, principal research analyst in the Africa and Far East section, 1942-43, chief of the Africa Section of the Research and Analysis Branch, 1943-44; U.S. State Department, Washington, DC, divisional assistant for colonial problems in the Division of Political Studies and area specialist on Africa and dependent areas in the Division of Territorial Studies, both 1944, acting associate chief, 1945, and associate chief of the Division of Dependent Area Affairs (also serving some months as acting chief), 1945-47, assistant secretary to the U.S. delegation at Dumbarton Oaks conference, 1944, technical expert on trusteeship for the U.S. delegation at the conference on International Organization at San Francisco, 1945, appointed by President Truman to membership on Anglo-American Caribbean Commission, 1945, adviser to the U.S. delegation to the United Nations General Assembly in London, 1946, adviser to the U.S. delegation to International Labour conferences in Paris and Philadephia; United Nations Secretariat, Washington, DC, director of the Trusteeship Division, 1947-55, undersecretary, 1955-57, undersecretary for special political affairs serving under Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold, 1957-67, undersecretary-general serving under Secretary-General U Thant, 1967-71. Special assistant to the Secretary-General's Special Committee on Palestine, and appointed principal secretary of the Palestine Commission, both 1947, head of the Palestine Commission, 1948, directed peace-keeping operations in such areas as Suez, 1956, Congo, 1960, Yemen, 1962-64, Cyprus, 1964, and India and Pakistan, 1965. Founder of National Negro Congress, 1936. Co-director of Institute of Race Relations at Swarthmore College, 1936; member of faculty of Harvard University, 1950-52; became trustee of Oberlin College, 1950, and the Rockefeller Foundation, 1955; member of the Harvard University board of overseers, 1958-65. country ridden by race prejudice--unlike [the] U.S. in that there is absolutely no escape at all for these black and colored people." As Edgar points out, Bunche's research notes, partly because they were not intended for immediate publication, often provide significant glimpses into Bunche's own inner thoughts and emotions. The glimpses are fleeting, since Bunche was famous for his reserve and discretion. On January 1, 1938, his first day on board ship after his departure from South Africa, Bunche noted that he was assigned to a table in the vessel's dining room with the chief engineer and a young Dutch girl. "The engineer, " he observed, "didn't show up at either meal today."