Ralph Bunche was an American political scientist, academic, and diplomat who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his late 1940s mediation in Palestine. He was the first African American and first person of color to be so honored.
For more than two decades, Bunche served as chair of the Department of Political Science at Howard University (1928 to 1950), where he also taught generations of students.
Near the end 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. He took part in drafting the United Nations Charter. Ralph Bunche, along with Eleanor Roosevelt, was considered instrumental in the creation and adoption of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
Dr. Ralph J. Bunche (R) standing with civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (C) at the Ghana independence ceremonies. Time Magazine archives.
From June of 1947 to August of 1949, Bunche worked on the most important assignment of his career – the confrontation between Arabs and Jews in Palestine. He was first appointed as assistant to the UN Special Committee on Palestine, then as principal secretary of the UN Palestine Commission, which was charged with carrying out the partition approved by the UN General Assembly. On September 17, 1948, Bunche was named acting UN mediator on Palestine. After eleven months of virtually ceaseless negotiating, Bunche obtained signatures on armistice agreements between Israel and the Arab States.
Bunche returned home to a hero’s welcome. New York gave him a ticker tape parade; Los Angeles declared a Ralph Bunche Day. He was besieged with requests to lecture, was awarded the Spingarn Prize by the NAACP in 1949, was given over thirty honorary degrees in the next three years, and the Nobel Peace Prize for 1950.