Talk:Ralph Bunche

Untitled
Is he the first ethnically African or Black individual to receive the Nobel Peace Prize? If so, this may want to be mentioned in the article. --Dpr 03:01, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
 * This shows "Bunche was the first person of color to receive the Nobel Peace Prize" --Ancheta Wis 21:29, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Awesome! Thanks for your help. This man was a amazing American and a prominent world citizen. He deserves to be recognized...other than solely a conference/student center named after him at Howard University (yes I know there are some things in NYC and at UCLA also) --Dpr 21:43, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Walk thru the eucalyptus trees, under Bunche Hall, and you will be in the Sculpture Garden at UCLA — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ancheta Wis (talk • contribs) 01:53, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Stable version now
Let's begin the discussion per the protocol. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ancheta Wis (talk • contribs) — Preceding undated comment added 04:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose -- the references section is hardly robust. There are few direct links to sources throughout the article.  The press paints a bull's eye on Wikipedia by pointing out factual inaccuracies.  It seems like media suicide to even discuss "stabilizing" an article that has so few reliable references.  Which is worse, "Wikipedia inaccurate for six minutes" (as per the recent Ken Lay flap), or "Wikipedia makes permanent version riddled with unsourced inaccuracies"?  "Stabilizing" this article in its current form would be the tip of the spear for hearing a lot of the latter.  JDoorj a m     Talk 21:42, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * To contain the forest fire that has this discussion spread across nine pages, I'd suggest discussion continue at the proposal talk page. JDoorj a m    Talk 20:44, 12 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Strong Oppose due to the protocol you refer to not existing yet. Cynical 20:35, 30 July 2006 (UTC)


 * One factual inaccuracy seems to be that "Ralph Bunche along with Eleanor Roosevelt were considered instrumental in the creation and adoption of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights". He is not mentioned in this capacity in any of the recent scholarly works on the Universal Declaration (ex. Natalie Kaufmann; Mary Ann Glendon; Paul Gordon Lauren; Carole Anderson; Rowland Brucken; and others). — Preceding unsigned comment added by August1974 (talk • contribs) 11:08, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Source and Zip for article
It is itself a secondary source, but the nomination of the Ralph Johnson Bunche House for National Historic Landmark status, linked at that page, contains an extensive discussion of Ralph Bunche's life and contributions. It seems to have zip that might be reflected in a good way in this article. I don't want to directly edit this article myself, right now, as i am working on historic places.... Hope this helps. doncram 18:20, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Year of Birth
Virtually all major sources give Ralph Bunche's year of birth as "1904," including the UN website. Using the SSDI is ORIGINAL RESEARCH and is thus not allowed. Remember, the Wikipedia rules stress "verifiability," not "truth."

However, getting to the "truth" of the matter: Social Security records are often incorrect, because the person applied for a pension early. Claiming to be a year older=retiring a year earlier. Documents issued when someone is in their 50s cannot serve as proof of birth. I'd like to see what the 1910 census says. Ryoung 122 03:22, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

The 1910 census record lists Ralph "Bunch" (as the family spelled the name at the time), the son of Fred Bunch and Olive Bunch (Bunche's parents' given names), as being age 6. If he was age 6 in April 1910, then this supports the evidence that he was born in August 1903 and not August 1904. This is the date used by the Ralph Bunche Centenary. Based on the "verifiability" standard, "reliable" sources support both years.Mrivlin (talk) 16:54, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I've added the CUNY source as yet another citation for his birthday. I have included both dates in the article. The stuff about the census is interesting and probably true, but wikipedia is not a place for original research or "synthesis". Wlmg (talk) 19:52, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

There is a discussion of the Bunche birth year confusion in a footnote on pages 25-26 of Sir Brian Urquhart's Bunche biogoraphy Ralph Bunche: An American Odyssey. Urquhart states that the correct year is 1903 and that the error stemmed from the family bible, which Bunche's aunt to a notary in 1940 to get a substitute birth verification when his birth certificate could not be located. Bunche had used 1903 until that time. I wish Wikipedia's programmers had routine way to list these kind of birth year and date confusions.Mrivlin (talk) 17:41, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

I've added a fifth citation for his birth date. The family bible anecdote makes it all the more problematic because it strongly implies that Bunche himself used both the 1903 & 1904 dates during his lifetime. I'm considering making a section in the article specifically addressing the birth date controversy incorporating all the citations, and let the chips fall where there'll be. I can also contact members of the Bunche family I know personally to see what input they have, but predict their answer will be "huh"? Wlmg (talk) 18:17, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

I clipped this reference here: <:ref name="centenary"> because it doesn't actually state a year of bunche's birth. that leaves four of them, which ought to be enough. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alf.laylah.wa.laylah (talk • contribs) 04:35, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Misleading Statement
"It was typical then for doctoral candidates to start teaching before completion of their dissertations." Graduate students have pretty much always taught, at various levels and in varying ways, for the entire 20th century and in all fields of study. This is news to no one. including it is like saying the sky is blue and the grass is green. you either know it as a fact (because you went to graduate school), or it is completely unimportant. The IMPORTANT part is this: he was a black graduate student teaching a Harvard (think: entitled white male, children of power brokers) undergraduate class in the 1930s. that is important for its sociopolitical implications.68.6.76.31 (talk) 22:53, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

His father abandons him? I can not find a reference.
I see two articles listing Bunches father as having died. I cannot find one the cite abandonment.

http://apps.detnews.com/apps/history/index.php?id=89 http://www.notablebiographies.com/Br-Ca/Bunche-Ralph.html#b — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.206.168.217 (talk) 00:00, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Communist or Marxist?
Dr. Bunche's political views should be addressed, and there is evidence, both in what he wrote, and in which venues he wrote, which suggests he subscribed or sympathized with Marxist/Communist theory. This evidence includes his contributions to Science & Society, an avowedly Marxist quarterly founded in 1936 and still published today (link), as well as his words in his book on race, alluding to the Marxist concept of the Class Struggle, and his association with Alger Hiss.

To avoid misunderstandings, I myself agree with certain aspects of the Marxist view--therefore, identifying Dr. Bunche as a Marxist or Communist sympathizer is not a slander. Indeed, during the 1930s (before the evils of Stalinism were widely known, during the dark days of the Great Depression and of Appeasement, when many idealistic people--including HG Wells--were seduced by the Kremlin's blandishments), it would probably have been surprising for an African-American academic NOT TO BE a communist sympathizer, since the American Communist Party was one of the few groups in the United States courageously taking a stand against racism (as in the case of defending the 'Scottsboro Boys.'

Finally, it would be interesting to probe whether the FBI did any surveillance of Dr. Bunche, given his prominence, his association with Hiss, his blackness, and his outspokenness. J Edgar Hoover's virulent racism being rivaled by his virulent anti-communism, Dr. Bunche would have presented the FBI Director's worst nightmare. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Guerre1859 (talk • contribs) 04:56, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
 * He was never a member or sympathizer. See  Rjensen (talk) 23:16, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

UCLA Digital Library link
I just added a link to publicly available digitized materials (lots of photographs, but other documents as well) held in UCLA Library's Special Collections. It's a rich resource that I think others will find meaningful and useful, but I'm mentioning it here because I'm a librarian at UCLA. I had nothing to do with the creation of the project, but I still want to make sure that it's generally agreed by page editors that this doesn't represent a conflict of interest. Nafpaktitism (talk) 00:18, 6 April 2013 (UTC)nafpaktitism

Bunch not Bunche
I added a citation needed tag to the article about a statement made trying to associate the Bunch family name to the Bunche family name. The source given goes into detail about John Punch and the possibility of him giving birth to a John Bunch, but I don't see where the connection is made to the Bunche family name. The way this article reads implies that Bunche is related to John Punch and President Obama but the sources given don't make this connection. I'm hoping someone can provide a source that directly speaks to that connection and that it isn't just the result of original research made by a few editors, not substantiated by reliable sources. Anyone who knows anything or can contribute, please feel free to clarify this for me. Scoobydunk (talk) 00:09, 31 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Hi, I have qualified the statement - the leap was made by Paul Heinegg, who was given an award for his major work of genealogy, Free African Americans in VA, NC and SC (1995-2005), so I have taken his work as an RS. He noted in the quoted material (which I have inserted in the article) that the connection of Ralph's father Fred Bunche to the Bunches of SC was "not proven," but "likely," as there were several other Bunches from SC in Detroit in the 1900 census at the same time that Fred Bunche was there. (My note: this was the period of the Great Migration from the South to northern and midwestern cities.) (So, yes, my memory was more emphatic than Heinegg's statement - I'll correct it.) He does trace several generations of Bunch males and other descendants from the 17th c. John Bunch in VA, who Ancestry.com connected to John Punch. Bunch descendants eventually moved west to the VA frontier, frontiers of NC and SC, and often west of that. Obama's mother's line of descendants ended up in KS, to Obama. The Ancestry.com material said many of the Bunch descendants were accepted as white as early as mid-18th c. or earlier. Heinegg has updated his material online about the first John Bunch to add the new material from the Ancestry.com articles re: DNA connection to Africa. You can see it if you look at his book online: http://www.freeafricanamericans.com. There is a section on the Bunch Family (The material is organized by family surname). Elsewhere or here in another section I've seen more about the Bunch/Bunche connection; basically, spelling variations arose but the basic name and ancestry is considered to be the same. There was much more spelling variation among surnames until quite late, but the basic name was rare.Parkwells (talk) 23:30, 1 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Excellent work! Thank you for taking the time to clarify this and I'll include the relevant information on the John Punch page once I find some time.Scoobydunk (talk) 03:01, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

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Father's Barber Shop - For Whites Only
I recently was reading a biography of Mr. Bunche and was surprised to learn that as a youngster, he could not enter his own father's barber shop because it was a 'White' barber shop - My edit was reverted. It is as follows: "Little Ralph was not allowed to visit his father's barber shop because it catered to White customers."

I did make an error on the page number, it's actually from page 51. Was this a possible reason for this being reverted? The system doesn't seem to allow comments or remarks for users to explain why a reversion is executed. I've left a message on the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Evrik#Thanks_for_Undoing_the_Ralph_Bunche_Addition!!!_How_do_I_Correct?_Please_Reveal_the_Error? editor's talk page]. Any remarks are welcome below. Keep up the good work. I'm very busy and may not have time to respond promptly. בס״ד 172.250.237.36 (talk) 02:13, 9 July 2020 (UTC)


 * It is interesting, but I think it doesn't belong. It says nothing about Ralph, and little about his father except that he lived in times when barbers' shops were segregated. Zerotalk 03:01, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I took out the fact because it was a random fact dropped in with little context. Perhaps a longer paragraph discussing race and his upbringing, or the effects of racism. However, it seems out of context where it was placed. --evrik (talk) 03:53, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
 * The fact that he was the first African American recipient of the Nobel prize is also mentioned; there seems to be an issue there. Thanks for the feedback. Keep up the good work. בס״ד  172.250.237.36 (talk) 16:56, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
 * That's a different issue. As it is right now, your factoid has no place in the article. --evrik (talk) 19:29, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
 * The Nobel Prize is a significant issue about Ralph Bunche. The barber's shop is not. Zerotalk 02:53, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
 * You suggest the mention of his father's profession is also not significant? Thanks for the comment. Keep up the good work. בס״ד  172.250.237.36 (talk) 15:53, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
 * His father's profession is admissible (a few words). Zerotalk 02:33, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Zero. The point isn't what his father did for a living, but that because of his skin color, he was not allowed to enter his father's place of business; contextually, for something like that to happen today, would be a clear civil rights issue, as a MINIMUM. So, in that context, it would be a pertinent addition, would it not? Today skin color would not be an issue, but during Dr. Bunche's childhood, and even during most of his adulthood, skin color was of definite importance regarding where a person was allowed to enter. Even as an adult, he may have been barred from that barber shop. Age was not the issue, skin color was.  Thanks for the feedback. Keep up the good work. בס״ד   172.250.237.36 (talk) 17:43, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

May I respectfully suggest that his childhood experience(s) inspired his humanitarian outlook later in life and therefore is significant? 72.130.204.150 (talk) 09:35, 23 August 2021 (UTC)