Politics / Civil rights & activism
Ralph Bunche
1904–1971 · diplomat, political scientist
The first Black Nobel laureate (Peace, 1950) was born in Detroit's Delray neighborhood and spent most of his early childhood in the city.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
New York City, New York
aged 67- Birth name
- Ralph Johnson Bunche
- Detroit years
- 1904–1915
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Ralph Bunche was born in Detroit in 1904, the son of a barber and an amateur musician, in a house on Athon Street in the Delray neighborhood, and was baptized at the city's historic Second Baptist Church. The family moved often: they lived on Monroe Street and on Macomb Street near downtown, spent time in Ohio and Tennessee, and came back to Detroit in 1909 with help from an aunt. Around 1915 the family left for New Mexico for his parents' health, and he later grew up with his grandmother in Los Angeles. Bunche became a UN mediator whose 1949 armistice talks between Israel and its Arab neighbors won him the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize. Detroit marked his birthplace as a Michigan Historic Site in 1972, and a school near his childhood homes on Macomb Street carries his name.
Highlights
- Nobel Peace Prize 1950, the first awarded to a Black person
- UN under-secretary-general and peacekeeping pioneer
- Mediated the 1949 armistice between Israel and Egypt
- Presidential Medal of Freedom (1963)
- Birthplace listed as a Michigan Historic Site in 1972
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 3
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Born here · 1904
Bunche birthplace, Athon Street (Delray)
Status being checked
His birth house (old number 434 Athon); the 1972 memorial plaque is no longer on site and was later shown at the Detroit Historical Museum.
Related place · 1904
Second Baptist Church
Detroit's oldest Black congregation, where he was baptized as an infant.
Memorial
Ralph J. Bunche Preparatory Academy
Public school on Macomb Street named after him, near the blocks where he lived as a child.