Ralph Bunche (7 August 1903-9 December 1971) was an American diplomat who worked with the United Nations in mediating between Jews and Arabs in Israel during the late 1940s. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in 1950, the first African-American to receive the honor.
Biography[]
Ralph Bunche was born in Detroit, Michigan on 7 August 1903 to a family of mixed white Irish and African-American descent. He was educated at Harvard, and he taught political science at Harvard and Howard Universities. In 1944, he published a major book on race relations, An American Dilemma. Bunche served with the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and the State Department during World War II, joined the UN Secretariat in 1946, and served on the Palestine Peace Commission in 1947. Following the assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte in 1948, he carried on negotiations with such skill that he was able to arrange an armistice between the warring Arabs and Jews, and he became the first African-American to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize when he was commended in 1950. He directed the Trusteeship Division of the UN from 1948 to 1954 and as Under-Secretary for Political Affairs until his death in 1971, and he was responsible for UN peacekeeping ventures in Suez in 1956, the Belgian Congo in 1960, and Cyprus in 1964.