Inspiration And Expert Advice: Famous People

Ralph Johnson Bunche – Nobel Peace Prize winner; U.N. diplomat
DOB: 1904
Date of Death: 1971
Diabetes type: unknown

Ralph Bunche, originally of Detroit, MI, was an American political scientist and diplomat who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his mediation in Palestine in the late 1940's that led to an armistice agreement between Jews and Arabs in the region.

Bunche was valedictorian of his graduating class at Jefferson High School in Los Angeles. He attended the Vermont Avenue (the original) campus of UCLA, graduating in 1927. With the assistance of money raised in his community and a scholarship from Harvard University, he studied for a master's degree and ultimately a doctorate in political science, the latter while teaching at Howard University.

Bunche spent time during World War II in the Office of Strategic Services (the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency) before joining the State Department. He participated in the preliminary planning for the United Nations at the San Francisco Conference of 1945, and in 1946 he was a member of the first U.S. delegation to the U.N. He then became an employee of the U.N. as the first Director of its new Trusteeship Department, at the appointment of Secretary-General Trygve Lie.