Civil Rights Movement
Bunche was an active and vocal supporter of the civil rights movement. He participated in the 1963 March on Washington, where Martin Luther King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech, and also in the Selma to Montgomery, Alabama march, which contributed to the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 and federal enforcement of voting rights.
Bunche lived in the Kew Gardens neighborhood of Queens, New York, from 1953 until his death. Like other people of color, Bunche continued to struggle against racism across the United States and in his own neighborhood. In 1959, he and his son, Ralph, Jr., were denied membership in the West Side Tennis Club in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens. After the issue was given national coverage by the press, the club offered the Bunches an apology and invitation of membership. The official who had rebuffed them resigned. Bunche refused the offer, saying it was not based on racial equality and was an exception based only on his personal prestige.
Read more about this topic: Ralph Bunche
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