Birthplace of Dr. Ralph J. Bunche

Under Secretary-General of the United Nations for the final sixteen years of his life, Ralph Bunche, grandson of a slave, was born in this neighborhood of Detroit on August 7, 1904, and lived here for the first decade of his life. Following the death of his parents in 1915, he spent the rest of his childhood in the West. After a brilliant career in political science at Harvard, Bunche collaborated in the late 1930s with Gunnar Myrdal in his monumental study of racism in America. Entering government service during World War II, he joined the State Department and was active in drafting the charter of the United Nations. Bunche’s success as a UN mediator after the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 won for him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950. He died in New York on December 9, 1971.