Peace Negotiator and Civil Rights Activist
Nobel Prize Cash and Philanthropy
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Ralph Bunche Peace Negotiator in the Middle East and Civil Rights Activist

Ralph Bunche attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and graduated Summa cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 1927 as the valedictorian of his class. He received a master’s degree in political science in 1928 and a doctorate in 1934 from Harvard University. He was the first African American to earn a PhD in political science from an American University. During World War II, he became the first African American with a top position in the State Department and helped create the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the United Nations. In 1947, he helped devise a plan for dividing Palestine between Arabs and Jews. When war broke out, Bunche took over as chief negotiator that resulted in the 1949 Armistice Agreement between Israel and its neighbors. He was involved in the formation and administration of the United Nations and played a major role in numerous peacekeeping operations sponsored by the U.N.

Bunche became the first African American to receive the Nobel Peace prize in 1950 for arranging the cease-fire between Israelis and Arabs during the war that followed the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. He continued to serve in the United Nations while actively supporting Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement. He participated in the 1963 March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. He also participated in the Selma to Montgomery, Alabama march in 1965 which resulted in the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 and federal enforcement of voting rights.

In addition to the Nobel Peace Prize, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by president John F. Kennedy in 1963. He was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP in 1949, and the Silver Buffalo Award by the Boy Scouts of America for his work in scouting and positive impact for the world in 1951. Scholar Molefi Kete Asante included Ralph Bunche on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans in 2002. In 2004, Ralph Bunche was posthumously honored with the William J. Donovan Award from the OSS Society. The Ralph Bunche Committee in the UCLA Alumni Association’s Alumni Scholars Club is named for him, as was a scholarship at Colby College.