RALPH J. BUNCHE

RALPH J. BUNCHE (1904 -1971) was a political scientist and the first African American to win a Nobel Prize in 1950 for negotiating an end to an Arab-Israeli conflict.

Ralph Bunche was continually active in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and ’60s.  He participated in civil rights marches in both Selma and Montgomery, Alabama, and for 22 years, served as a board member for the NAACP.

Narration:

Nobel Prize winner and diplomat. His name – Ralph Bunche.

Born in 1903 in Detroit, Michigan, Ralph Johnson Bunche was orphaned at 13 when both parents died in the same year.

Raised in Los Angeles by his grandmother, he was a brilliant student and valedictorian in high school. He went to the University of California and graduated summa cum laude in 1927. Again, as valedictorian. At Harvard, he earned a master’s degree in political science in 1928, and a doctorate in 1934, while teaching at Howard University.

A U.S. diplomat, civil rights activist, and first African American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, Bunche won the award in 1950 for his successful negotiation of an Arab-Israeli truce.

By 1963 he was instrumental in the creation of the United Nations and was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Kennedy.

Ralph Bunche – A Great American

Credits: Editor: Stacy T. Holmes, ACE, Narrator: Steve Schy, Music: PartnersinRhyme.com, Digital Collection: Library of Congress, Copyright: CBN Communications