In 1950, Dr. Ralph Bunche received the Nobel Peace Prize for his successful negotiation of an Arab-Israeli truce in Palestine the previous year, thus becoming the first Black American to receive a Nobel Prize. A scholar, government official and a member of the United Nations staff. Dr. Bunche has worked to make this world a better place in which to live for people of all races and nationalities. He grew up in poverty, shining shoes and selling papers to help his family.
Ralph Bunche was the valedictorian of his Jefferson High School class in Los Angeles, and also valedictorian of UCLA’s class of 1927, winning a scholarship for graduate work at Harvard University. He also earned graduate degrees in government and international relations at Harvard University and studied in England and South Africa. At Harvard he became the first Black student to receive a Ph.D in political science in the United States. In 1928 he joined the faculty of Howard University, Washington, D.C., where he reorganized and headed the political science department at the university.
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. In 1936 Bunche helped establish the National Negro Congress, which sought to bring together Black leaders in many fields to push for labor and civil rights. Beginning in 1938, Bunche assisted Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal in writing An American Dilemma (1944), a study of Black and White race relations in the United States.
Bunche joined the UN Secretariat in 1947, where he developed the guidelines under which many territories gained nationhood. In this position he was responsible for overseeing the administration of the UN Trust Territories and their progress towards self-government and independence. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950 for his work as head of a UN peace-seeking Palestine commission that negotiated an armistice between the new state of Israel and Arab nations.
Bunche was the first person of color to receive the prize. In 1955 Bunche became UN Undersecretary General for Special Political Affairs. As undersecretary, Bunche was the highest ranking American at the UN at the time. In 1963 President John F. Kennedy awarded Bunche the Medal of Freedom, the U.S. government’s highest civilian award. In the decades following his Nobel Peace Prize award, Bunche became one of the most revered public figures in America and the world.