Ralph Bunche

Ralph J. Bunche

Ralph Johnson Bunche (born August 7, 1904 in Detroit , Michigan , USA , † December 9, 1971 in New York , NY ) was an American diplomat and civil rights activist. He received the Spingarn Medal from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1949 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950.

life and work

Training and scientific development

Ralph Bunche was born in Detroit in 1904. His father, Fred Bunche, was a hairdresser serving exclusively white clients, and his mother, Olive (Johnson) Bunche, was an amateur musician. The grandmother, "Nana" Johnson, who lived with the family, was born a slave . When Bunche was ten, the family moved to Albuquerque , New Mexico , hoping that the dry climate would improve their parents' poor health. However, both died of tuberculosis after two years . His grandmother, who passed for white on the outside but "had a completely black inside," brought Ralph and his two sisters to Los Angeles . Here Ralph had to take practically any employment he could find. He sold newspapers and worked, among other things, as a house servant for a film actor and for a carpet laying company.

When he graduated from elementary school, he won prizes in history and English. He graduated from Jefferson High School in Los Angeles as the best of his year ( valedictorian ). Even when he was still at school, he also emerged as an athlete, for example in American football , basketball and baseball . The visit to the University of California at Los Angeles was made possible by an athletic scholarship that covered all of his expenses. He graduated summa cum laude in 1927 as the best of his year.

With a scholarship from Harvard University and a sum of $ 1,000 raised by the black community in Los Angeles, Bunche began studying political science . He finished his master’s degree in 1928 and switched between teaching at Howard University and doing a doctorate at Harvard University. With the help of a Rosenwald Fellowship from 1932 to 1933, he carried out research in Africa, where he compared the colonial rule in Togoland and Dahomey . For his dissertation , he received the Toppan Prize in 1934 for extraordinary research in social studies . He worked at Northwestern University , the London School of Economics and Political Science and in Cape Town , South Africa .

Bunche's entire career was always associated with teaching, for example at the Department of Political Science at Howard University from 1928 to 1950. He also taught at Harvard University from 1950 to 1952 and was a member of the New York City Board of Education (1958–1964), Member of the Board of Overseers at Harvard University (1960-1965) and member of the Board of the Institute of International Education, he was also a trustee of Oberlin College, Lincoln University, and the New Lincoln School.

Activity in the civil rights movement

Bunche has always been active in the civil rights movement. During his time at Howard University, he was seen as a young radical who criticized the American social system and the established black organizations. Influenced by his experience as co-director of the Institute for Racial Relations at Swarthmore College. In 1936 he wrote A World View of Race (1936) and in 1944 he edited the book An American Dilemma with the Swedish social scientist Gunnar Myrdal .

Many activities followed, which also made him a member of the "Black Cabinet", which dealt with minorities and was convened by Franklin D. Roosevelt . His activities also led him to Martin Luther King Jr . together. His conviction was always unmistakable: Racial prejudice is an unfounded phenomenon without a scientific basis in biology or anthropology, "Racial segregation and democracy are incompatible". In his view, blacks should continue their struggle for equal rights, accepting their responsibilities related to freedom, and whites should stand up for “democracy is color blind”.

Diplomatic and political career

During the Second World War, Ralph Bunche was assigned to the Office of Strategic Services (the predecessor of the CIA ) in 1941 and took on the role of social science analyst, where he headed the Africa section from 1943 to 1944. In 1945 he became Commissioner for the Affairs of the Caribbean and from 1946 to 1954 Head of Trust Affairs of the United Nations . From 1948 to 1949 he played a decisive role as a mediator in the Palestinian War , in which he took over the negotiations between the Israeli people and the Arab states as UN mediator and successor to the murdered Folke Bernadotte . Immediately after the ceasefire agreement of 1949 , US President Harry S. Truman offered him a post as Secretary of State for Africa and the Middle East, which he refused. New York welcomed Bunche with a confetti parade , Los Angeles declared a "Ralph Bunche Day". He was besieged with requests for lectures, received the Spingarn Prize from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1949 and the first black man to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950. In 1950 he was admitted to the American Philosophical Society and in 1951 to the American Academy of Arts Sciences chosen.

In 1954, Ralph Bunche became United Nations Undersecretary for Political Affairs, but shortly afterwards he retired from political life and dealt with international peace policy, development aid and the admission of African states to international bodies. As early as 1956 he appeared again as a mediator during the Suez crisis . In 1960 and 1963 he was the organizer of the UN peacekeeping forces in the Congo . Further tasks were the unsuccessful mediation in the Yemen War in 1963, the monitoring of the peacekeeping troops in the Cyprus conflict in 1964 and the organization of an observer force in the war between India and Pakistan in 1965. Ralph Bunche arranged for the Austrian composer and conductor Robert Stolz (1880–1975), who was a close friend of his, for the UN to compose a march (UNO march, March of the United Nations). From 1967 he was Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations until he resigned for health reasons in 1971, shortly afterwards he died of diabetes .

Honors

On December 6, 1963, US President gave John F. Kennedy Bunche, the Medal of Freedom ( "The Presidential Medal of Freedom"), the highest civilian honor in the United States.

literature

• Elad Ben-Dror: Ralph Bunche and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: Mediation and the UN 1947-1949, . Routledge, 2016, ISBN 978-1138789883 .
• Bernhard Kupfer: Lexicon of Nobel Prize Winners. Patmos Verlag, Düsseldorf 2001, ISBN 3-491-72451-1 . Elad Ben-Dror: Ralph Bunche and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: Mediation and the UN 1947-1949, . Routledge, 2016, ISBN 978-1138789883 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Member History: Ralph J. Bunche. American Philosophical Society, accessed May 24, 2018 . 
2. ↑ http://www.medaloffreedom.com/Chronological.htm ( Memento of October 12, 2007 in the Internet Archive )

Web links

Commons : Ralph Bunche  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Information from the Nobel Foundation on the 1950 award ceremony for Ralph Bunche
• "Dr. Bunche of UN, Nobel Winner, Dies" (NY Times December 10, 1971)
• Newspaper article about Ralph Bunche in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .