Quick Facts
- NAME: Ralph Bunche
- OCCUPATION: Diplomat
- BIRTH DATE: August 07, 1904
- DEATH DATE: December 09, 1971
- EDUCATION: UCLA, Harvard University, Northwestern University, London School of Economics
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Detroit, Michigan
- PLACE OF DEATH: New York City, New York
Best Known For
Ralph Bunche was a U.S. diplomat, a key member of the United Nations for more than two decades, and the winner of the 1950 Nobel Prize for Peace.
Ralph Bunche. (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 12:52, Feb 09, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/ralph-bunche-9231128
Ralph Bunche [Internet]. 2012. http://www.biography.com/people/ralph-bunche-9231128, February 09
" Ralph Bunche." 2012. Biography.com 09 Feb 2012, 12:52 http://www.biography.com/people/ralph-bunche-9231128
' Ralph Bunche', Biography.com,(2012) http://www.biography.com/people/ralph-bunche-9231128 [accessed Feb 09, 2012]
" Ralph Bunche," Biography.com, http://www.biography.com/people/ralph-bunche-9231128 (accessed Feb 09, 2012).
Ralph Bunche [Internet]. Biography.com; 2012 [cited 2012 Feb 09]. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/ralph-bunche-9231128.
Ralph Bunche, http://www.biography.com/people/ralph-bunche-9231128 (last visited Feb 09, 2012).
Ralph Bunche, http://www.biography.com/people/ralph-bunche-9231128 (last visited Feb 09, 2012).
Synopsis
Born on August 7, 1904, in Detroit, Michigan, Ralph Bunche served in the US War Department, the Office of Strategic Services, and the State Department during WWII. He also negotiated an armistice between Palestinians and Jews, for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize. He worked on atomic energy issues and in the Congo with the UN and set up a department of political science at Howard University.
Profile
(born Aug. 7, 1904, Detroit, Mich., U.S.—died Dec. 9, 1971, New York, N.Y.) U.S. diplomat, a key member of the United Nations for more than two decades, and winner of the 1950 Nobel Prize for Peace for his successful negotiation of an Arab-Israeli truce in Palestine the previous year.
Bunche worked his way through the University of California at Los Angeles and graduated in 1927. He also earned graduate degrees in government and international relations at Harvard University (1928, 1934) and studied in England and South Africa. In 1928 he joined the faculty of Howard University, Washington, D.C., where he set up a department of political science. Meanwhile, he traveled through French West Africa on a Rosenwald field fellowship, studying the administration of French Togoland, a mandated area, and Dahomey, a colony. He later did postdoctoral research at Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill., and at the London School of Economics before returning to Africa for further studies in colonial policy. Between 1938 and 1940 he collaborated with Gunnar Myrdal, the Swedish sociologist, in the monumental study of U.S. race relations, published as An American Dilemma in 1944.
During World War II Bunche served in the U.S. War Department, the Office of Strategic Services, and the State Department. He was active in the preliminary planning for the United Nations at the San Francisco Conference of 1945 and in 1947 joined the permanent UN Secretariat in New York as director of the new Trusteeship Department.
Asked by Secretary General Trygve Lie to aid a UN special committee appointed to negotiate a settlement between warring Palestinian Arabs and Jews, he was thrust unexpectedly into the principal role when the chief mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, was assassinated in 1948. Bunche finally negotiated armistices between February and May 1949.
Elevated in 1955 to the post of undersecretary and two years later to undersecretary for special political affairs, Bunche became chief troubleshooter for Secretary General Dag Hammarskjld. One task he undertook was the UN program concerning peaceful uses of atomic energy. In 1956 he supervised the deployment of a 6,000-man UN neutral force in the area of the Suez Canal following the invasion of that area by British, French, and Israeli troops. In 1960 he again found himself in charge of UN peacekeeping machinery—this time in the Congo region. Finally, in 1964 he went to Cyprus to direct the 6,000 neutral troops that intervened between hostile Greek Cypriots and Turks.
Attracting some criticism for seeming to neglect the Civil Rights
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Nobel Peace Prize Winners
View groupWhen Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel died in 1896, he left his fortune to create an annual series of prizes for the individuals who confer "the greatest benefit on mankind." The most prestigious of the awards is the Nobel Peace Prize. Historians believe Alfred Nobel wanted to award people who work for peace to compensate for his own role in inventing dynamite. Since its establishment, the prize has gone to many courageous individuals who have fought for peace and human rights around the world.
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