1950: Ralph Bunnche: 'nation shall not rise up against nation …' - The Nobel Prize - Biography

UN Chronicle, Sept-Nov, 2003

In his Nobel Lecture on 11 December 1950, Ralph Johnson Bunche spoke of the United Nations in glowing terms after being honoured as the first UN Nobel Peace Laureate. Calling the United Nations "the greatest peace effort in history" and emphasizing that it "exists not merely to preserve the peace but also to make change ... possible without violent upheaval", he stressed that the Organization sought "only unity, not uniformity, out of the world's diversity". He initially declined the award, writing to the Norwegian Nobel Committee: "You didn't work in the [UN] Secretariat to win prizes".

Born in Detroit, Michigan in 1903, Ralph Bunche came from a working-class black family. His grandmother, "Nana" Johnson, an influential figure in Ralph's life who lived with the family, had been born into slavery. An exceptional scholar, he began his graduate studies at Harvard University with a scholarship and a $1,000 fund raised by the black community of Los Angeles, California. He completed his master's degree in 1928 and his doctorate in 1934, both from Harvard. His dissertation, comparing French rule in Togoland and Dahomey, was awarded the Toppan Prize for outstanding research in social studies.

An educator, civil rights advocate and world statesman, Bunche made his mark as a scholar activist and left a rich legacy of achievement wherever his career took him--the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Harvard University, Howard University, the United States Office of Strategic Services and the State Department, and the United Nations. He joined the world Organization in 1946, in charge of the Department of Trusteeship, dealing with problems of the still enslaved and colonized. He ultimately became the UN chief troubleshooter and architect for peace, called upon repeatedly by Secretaries-General Trygve Lie, Dag Hammarskjold and U Thant.

As principal Secretary of the UN Palestine Commission, he was charged with carrying out the partition approved by the General Assembly. When this plan aborted and fighting between the Arabs and Israelis escalated, Secretary-General Trygve Lie appointed Count Folke Bernadotte as Mediator on Palestine and Ralph Bunche as his chief aide. A few months later, Count Bernadotte was assassinated and Mr. Bunche was named acting UN mediator. After eleven months of virtually ceaseless negotiations, he obtained signatures on armistice agreements between Israel and the Arab States. The armistice represented the United Nations first tangible success in containing a war, and being its chief architect earned Ralph Bunche the Nobel Peace Prize.

The list of nominees for the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize included statesmen like Winston Churchill and George C. Marshall. That Ralph Bunche was the candidate picked by the Nobel Committee is a measure not just of the success of the ideals of the United Nations but also of the stature of the man. His own success was a direct result of his intellectual brilliance, rigorous scholarship, acute sensitivity to human relations, determination and sheer hard work. His career encompassed pioneering work in the cause of civil rights and racial equality in the United States, in the development of American governmental and public understanding of Africa, in the establishment of the United Nations, and the evolution of its innovative programmes for decolonization, international mediation, and the containment of armed conflict through international peacekeeping operations.

The mission of the United Nations was very close to Mr. Bunche's heart and he chose to remain at the Organization, despite a tempting offer of an appointment as professor of government at Harvard University. He rose to become Under-Secretary-General for Special Political Affairs and was instrumental in developing and administering UN peacekeeping and truce observation activities in the Sinai in 1956, the Congo in 1960, Cyprus in 1962, Yemen in 1963 and India and Pakistan in 1965. He also played an important role in establishing the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Development Programme.

In his Nobel Lecture, he virtually anticipated a debate current in the context of peacekeeping in the United Nations, and among those who study it, today "To the common man, the state of world affairs is baffling. All nations and peoples claim to be for peace. But never has peace been more continuously in jeopardy", and "to make peace in the world secure, the United Nations must have readily at its disposal ... military strength of sufficient dimensions to make certain that it can meet aggressive military force with international military force, speedily and conclusively."

He worked tirelessly towards the attainment of United Nations goals of providing equality and equal rights to all peoples, the rights of minorities, whether for reasons of race, religion, or ideology, and issues of decolonization. Ralph Bunche retired from the United Nations in early 1971 because of ill health, and died on 9 December of that year, on the eve of Human Rights Day. Secretary-General U Thant described him as "an international institution in his own right, transcending both nationality and race in a way that is achieved by very few".