On this day in 1904, diplomat Ralph Bunche was born

Aug. 7, 1904

Diplomat Ralph Bunche was born in Detroit. He was a member of the “Black Cabinet,” which President Franklin D. Roosevelt consulted on minority issues. 

After heading the Howard University Political Science Department for more than 20 years, he went to the United Nations and served as its mediator on Palestine. After negotiating the 1948 armistice agreements between Israel and the Arab states, he returned home to receive a ticket-tape parade on Broadway. In 1950, he received the Nobel Peace Prize. 

Bunche took part in the civil rights movement for decades, served on the NAACP board and helped Martin Luther King Jr. lead the Selma to Montgomery march in 1965 in Alabama. 

“To make our way, we must have firm resolve, persistence, tenacity,” he said. “We must gear ourselves to work hard all the way. We can never let up.”