On September 22, 1950 the world was
surprised when an American diplomat
on loan to the United Nations was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It was not that his achievement was unworthy—brokering the thorny negotiations that led to an armistice agreements between Israel and the Arab States ending a bloody
war that began when Israel declared
its independence—it was because Ralph Bunche was an African-American.
Bunch was born in Detroit, Michigan on August 4, 1904 (some sources place the date a year
earlier.) His father was a barber
serving an exclusively white clientele—and
thus probably passing himself off as
white in his work. Some of his ancestors had been free since before the American
Revolution. His mother was an accomplished amateur
musician. Also in the house hold was
his maternal grandmother, “Nana” Johnson who had been born into slavery but was also capable of “passing.” Despite their fair completions the family strongly identified as Black and lived in that community.
Both parents were in fragile health and the whole family relocated to Albuquerque, New Mexico in hopes of improvement. Both however soon succumbed—probably to tuberculosis. Bunche, his two sisters, and his grandmother
moved to Los Angeles.
To help support the family Ralph sold newspapers and held numerous side jobs, including laying carpets, and being a house boy to a film actor while he attended Jefferson High School. Despite the time lost to work, he excelled as both a student and an athlete. He was valedictorian of his graduating class, and earned athletic scholarships to the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA.) While the scholarships paid his school expenses, he earned his personal expenses by working as a janitor. He competed as a varsity basketball player on league championship teams while also competing in debate and writing for the campus newspaper. In 1927 Bunche graduated summa cum laude and valedictorian with a major in international relations.
His accomplishment was a matter of great
pride in his South Los Angeles neighborhood. The community raised $1000 by subscription to supplement a scholarship so that Bunche could
continue his education at Harvard. He completed his Masters in political science
in just a year. He began teaching at
Howard University, the nation’s most prestigious Black institution in
the fall of 1928. For the next six years
he alternated terms at Howard and back at Harvard where he pursued his Doctorate.
He was named Chair of Howard’s
Department of Political Science, a
title he held until 1950 despite numerous absences
to conduct research or in war time or diplomatic service.
He received many honors and distinctions as a scholar. The Rosenwald
Fellowship in 1932 and 1933 enabled him to conduct research in Africa for a dissertation comparing French
rule in Togoland and Dahomey. The resulting paper won the Toppan Prize for outstanding original
research in the social sciences in 1934.
A fellowship from the Social
Science Research Council from 1936-37 enabled Bunche to do postdoctoral research at Northwestern University, the London School of Economics, and the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
As he was becoming the acknowledged
leading academic on African affairs
and European Colonialism, he began
to forcefully expound his sometimes controversial views. His influential 1936 pamphlet A World View of
Race argued, “…class will some day supplant race in world affairs. Race war will then be
merely a side-show to the gigantic class
war which will be waged in the big tent we call the world.” From 1936-40 Bunche was contributing editor
to a leftist academic journal, Science and Society: A Marxian
Quarterly.
It was inevitable that with his credentials and expertise Bunche would
be called upon for service during World
War II. He began as a senior analyst on colonial affairs at the Office
of Strategic Services (OSS.) There his knowledge of French possessions
helped provide information that kept most of the sub-Saharan colonies in Free
French hands and available as support for eventual action in North Africa. He also provided insight on Nazi attempts
to turn South African Boers against
the British Empire.
In 1943 Bunche moved to the State
Department where he served under Alger
Hiss as Associate Chief of the Division of Dependent Area Affairs. There he worked not only on African issues
but as a leader of the Institute of Pacific Relations, and the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission.
Bunche was
active in preliminary planning for
the Dumbarton Oaks Conversations
held in Washington D.C. in 1944 and
as an adviser to the U.S. Delegation
for the Charter Conference of the United
Nations in 1945. He participated in the drafting of the Charter. He
worked closely with Eleanor Roosevelt
in the creation and adoption of the U.N.
Declaration of Human Rights.
Given his role
in the birth of the institution, it
came as no surprise when UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie asked to “borrow”
Bunche from the State Department in 1946.
He was placed in charge of the Department
of Trusteeship to oversee the numerous dependent
areas that were placed under UN
Trusteeship following the war. It
was delicate work, balancing the demands of former colonial masters and the
growing anti-colonial nationalism of
countries straining at the “transition”
process to self-government.
In June, 1947 Bunche was assigned to
work on the seemingly intractable
problem of confrontation between Jews
and Arabs in Palestine. He soon moved
from assistant to the UN Special Committee on Palestine to Principal Secretary of the UN Palestine Commission, which was
charged with carrying out the partition approved
by the UN General Assembly. When the
original partition plan was dropped
amid intense fighting between Arabs and Israelis
in early 1948 the UN appointed Swedish
Count Folke Bernadotte as mediator
for the conflict with Bunche as his chief aide. Count Bernadotte was assassinated in Jerusalem four months later on September 17 by the Zionist group Lehi. And Bunche was catapulted to chief mediator on Palestine.
It was, theoretically a “temporary” appointment.
For eleven months Bunche conducted
ceaseless negotiation from his headquarters on the island of Rhodes. Israeli negotiator Moshe Dayan later reported on Bunche’s unorthodox style. He often
conducted one-on-one talks with the
parties over supposedly casual games
of billiards. He generally kept the parties apart as much as possible since their
mere presence with each other in the
same room inflamed passions and
tended to harden positions. He shuffled
the parties in an out getting little
concessions here and there from both parties until he could finally bring
them together to sign the 1949 Armistice Agreements made successively between February and July
between Israel and its neighbors, Egypt,
Lebanon, Jordon, and Syria. No party got what they really wanted, but all parties got what they could live with—at least for a while.
His
accomplishments made Bunche an instant
celebrity. He was greeted in New York City by a ticker tape parade and his adopted home town of Los Angeles
declared a Ralph Bunche Day. He was awarded the Spingarn
Prize by the National Association of
Colored People (NAACP) in
1949. He was awarded 30 honorary degrees over the next three
years. He could not keep up with requests for speeches. And all of this
only intensified with the announcement of the Nobel Prize.
Of course, Bunche was not without critics. His participation in the avowedly Marxist academic publication,
his endorsement of National Negro
Congress in the ‘30’s, and his close
association with accused traitor
Alger Hiss did not go unnoticed. He was
somewhat protected by the enormous prestige of the Nobel Prize—and
the fact that he was no longer at the State Department. But he was subjected to
an investigation by a Loyalty Board into American diplomats
working at the United Nations in 1953 and had to personally appear and refute
each of 14 spurious charges
against him. Although he had the support of President Dwight Eisenhower, it was a painful and humiliating
experience for him.
Many also did not appreciate his loud public support for Civil Rights causes. Academically, he had participated in the
groundbreaking research on American race
relations by Swedish sociologist
Gunnar Myrdal and often spoken out about
the absence of scientific evidence for differentiations
among the races. He publicly supported actions by both the
NAACP and the Urban League. He endorsed
the campaigns of non-violent civil disobedience of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and participated in the 1963 March on Washington. Controversy around him probably cost him appointment as Secretary of State or Ambassador
to the United Nations under John F.
Kennedy.
The beneficiaries of his greatest
achievement have not looked kindly towards him in recent years. Palestinians
and Israelis have hardened even more
toward one another after years of ongoing conflict and bloodshed. Both wield their own oft revised views of history
as cudgels. And both sides now feel that Bunche “sold them out” and blame the ongoing
conflict in not getting everything they demanded in those tense
negotiations. Compromise and compromisers
are no longer welcome in either
camp.
For his part, the indefatigable
Bunche resumed splitting his time numerous educational commitments, lecturing,
and undertaking more missions for the United Nations. From 1955 to 1967, he was Undersecretary for Special Political
Affairs and from 1968 to his death was Undersecretary-General.
In 1960 Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld appointed him as his
special representative to oversee the UN commitments in the war torn Congo and he served similarly during
conflicts in Cyprus, Kashmir, and Yemen.
Bunche found time to teach at
Harvard from 1950-52, serve on the New
York City Board of Education from 1958-64, serve as a member of the Harvard
Board of Overseers from 1960 to 65,
as well as being a board member of the Institute
of International Education, and a trustee of Oberlin College, Lincoln
University, and New Lincoln School.
Bunche died, evidently of exhaustion,
on December 9, 1971 at the age of 68.
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