Dr. Ralph Bunche was born on August 7, 1904, in Detroit, Michigan. According to Howard University, Bunche was raised in Los Angeles by his maternal grandmother. He graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from UCLA in 1927 and completed a doctorate in Political Science at Harvard in 1934, becoming the first Black person to receive a doctorate in the field. Bunche served as a professor and founding head of the Political Science Department at Howard University from 1928 to 1941, before going to study colonial policy in West Africa. He then joined Swedish social scientist Gunnar Myrdal who was researching racial segregation in the U.S. Bunche’s work with Myrdal would serve as the foundation for his later work, with Bunche becoming the first Black person to hold a high ranking position in the State Department during World War II.
