Memories, reflections … and observations - First Person

UN Chronicle, Sept-Nov, 2003 by Ralph Bunche, Jr.

I was born in Washington, DC in September 1943 about the time my father was working on African affairs at the United States Office of Strategic Services. We moved to Parkway Village in Queens, New York, at the time the United Nations was established. Most of my recollections of my father are from that time until he passed away a month before my marriage to Patricia Hittinger in December 1971. During the early days of the United Nations, my father was frequently away for long stretches and rarely home before 9 p.m. Most of our time together was on weekends, watching sporting events, while he was writing speeches on Sunday afternoons, or on his regular summer trips to Europe and Asia on UN business, In mentioning these facts, I do not intend to comment on my father's work because Sir Brian Urquhart, his friend, colleague and biographer, is far more capable than I am. What I will do is reflect on several topics which were of paramount importance to our family and its development.

My father was a hard taskmaster and disciplinarian. On the top of his agenda during my childhood was education. This and sports achievement are what allowed him to make a contribution to the world community, despite coming from a background that did not have a great deal of financial resources. He continually drummed into us the importance of education, hard work and achievement to the best of one's abilities. He believed that in spite of the prejudices in society, with dedication, perseverance and hard work, one could do anything one wanted to with life. I will never forget a call from him one Sunday morning while I was at Colby College. He said he had called the previous evening only to learn that I was out at a party. He said that he could not understand why I was out partying on a Saturday night when I certainly was not receiving top grades. At first, I thought he was joking, but I soon found out that he certainly was not! Striving to get the best education and grades possible was of the utmost importance to his view of life and its possibilities.

My second recollection was his belief in the equality of race and gender, and that all people were created equal and with hard work could achieve whatever they set out to achieve. He would not tolerate prejudice of any kind or any form of bigotry--a characteristic he shared with my wife.

I recall the marches with Martin Luther King, even when his health was severely faltering, and the incident with The West Side Tennis Club, which was front page news in The New York Times. We had moved into a house in Kew Gardens, Queens with the monies from the Nobel Prize and I was taking lessons at the Club, where the United States Tennis Open was held annually. We applied for regular membership and I was accepted, but surprisingly only as an honorary member. This, it turned out, was because at that time there were no black American members. Of course, my father turned down the offer and the negative publicity the Club received quickly helped to change its restrictive policies, but on principle we never joined. I was one of the first black Americans at a number of schools I attended: Trinity, Choate and Colby College. Although we never talked about it, I have always thought that this was another of my Dad's ways of taking a stand on discrimination and bigotry.

Africa was always central to my father's existence; one of the high points of my early life was meeting one of his great friends, Jomo Kenyatta, in his residence in Kenya. I was scheduled one summer to go with my father to the Congo; however, because of the disturbances, our trip together was put off. If my father had been alive today, he would have been disappointed that the African continent has not progressed as quickly as it seemed possible in the sixties, and he would be working tirelessly to try to ensure that its economic and social plight narrowed for the benefit of Africa and its people, and equally for the health and safety of the more developed world. My father believed strongly that the African continent had a great deal to contribute to this world. One only has to reflect on the importance of a figure such as Nelson Mandela to many of the people of the world to see this, (I am one of the many who hope to have the privilege of shaking his hand one day.)

My father had a strong belief in the strength of the United Nations peacekeeping force in the fifties, when the political realities were quite different from those of today. I continue to believe that my father would strongly argue for the merits of the UN peacekeepers if outbreaks and wars are to continue to be minimized. The world is certainly a better place today despite our current problems, and the peacekeeping forces have made their contribution in the past and certainly will in the future. Unfortunately, they have not been called on in Iraq, but as the balance of powers continue to shift in the future, I am certain peacekeepers will continue to play their role in making our world a safer place. Some people may think that the United Nations and its peacekeepers have seen better days, but I am quite sure that my Dad would strongly argue that their time will come again, and quite shortly at that!