Ralph Bunche - Bronx, NY - Grave of a Famous Person on Waymarking.com

Ralph Bunch (the ‘e’ was added later) was born in Detroit but grew up and attended school in Los Angeles where he excelled both athletically and academically. He pursued political science and international relations as majors eventually attaining an M.A and a Ph.D.

Throughout the late 1920s and 1930s, Bunche held various positions in academia, namely at Howard University in D.C., while pursuing postgraduate work internationally at the London School of Economics and the University of Cape Town. In the 1940s, he worked for the U.S. government both in the OSS (forerunner of the CIA) and the State Department.

When the United Nations started taking shape toward the end of World War II, Ralph Bunche found his true calling. He was part of the U.S. delegation to both the 1944 Dumbarton Oaks Conference and the 1945 San Francisco Conference where he helped to draft parts of the original UN Charter. He served as director of the Trusteeship Council and worked his way up to under-secretary-general in 1968, the highest position ever held by an American at the U.N.

In 1950, Ralph Bunche was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in negotiating the Armistice Agreements between the new state of Israel and several Arab states the year before. Bunche had taken over the talks from Swedish mediator Count Folke Bernadotte, who had been killed in a terrorist attack in 1948. Ralph Bunche was the first African American to win a Nobel Prize.

Ralph Bunche died in 1971 at the age of 67 in New York City. He is laid to rest in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. Besides the Nobel Peace Prize, Bunche was also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by John F. Kennedy in 1963. His Nobel Prize is on display at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC and, of course, he has appeared on a U.S. postage stamp.
(Source: biography.com)

Description: See Long Description above. Date of birth: 08/07/1904 Date of death: 12/09/1971 Area of notoriety: Other Marker Type: Horizontal Marker Setting: Outdoor Visiting Hours/Restrictions: 8:30 am to 4:30 pm Fee required?: No Web site: [Web Link]

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