Ralph Bunche - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Bunche was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1903/1904 and baptized at the city's Second Baptist Church. His father, Fred, was a barber, while his mother, Olive Agnes (née Johnson), was an amateur musician, from a "large and talented family." Her siblings included Charlie and Ethel Johnson.

The extended family had African and European ancestry, like many African Americans. Both his maternal grandparents had African-American and Irish ancestry; his maternal grandmother was Lucy A. Taylor, the daughter of a house slave and an Irish planter. His maternal grandfather, Thomas Nelson Johnson, was the son of Eleanor Madden and her husband; she was the daughter of an African-American slave mother and Irish planter father. Johnson graduated from Shurtleff College in Alton, Illinois in 1875, also teaching there. That September he married Lucy Taylor, one of his students.

Fred Bunche is believed to have had Bunch and other ancestors who were established as free people of color in Virginia before the American Revolution. The Bunch/Bunche surname was extremely rare. In 2012 researchers published evidence showing that male descendants can be traced through historical records and y-DNA analysis to John Punch, an African indentured servant sentenced to life service in 1640, and considered to be the first slave in Virginia. President Barack Obama is also believed to be among his descendants. Several generations of the Bunch men, free people of color, married white women from the British Isles.

When Ralph was a child, his family moved to Toledo, Ohio, where his father looked for work. They returned to Detroit in 1909 after his sister Grace was born, with the help of their maternal aunt, Ethel Johnson. Their father did not live with the family again after Ohio and had not been "a good provider," but followed them when they moved to New Mexico. In 1915, together with Ralph's maternal grandmother, Lucy Taylor Johnson, they moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, for the health of his mother and her brother Charlie Johnson, who both suffered tuberculosis. His mother died in 1917 and Charlie committed suicide three months later. Ralph Bunche was 13. Lucy Taylor Johnson moved with her two grandchildren to the South Central neighborhood of Los Angeles in 1918, which was then mostly white. Fred Bunche later remarried, and Ralph never saw him again.

Bunche was a brilliant student, a debater, and the valedictorian of his graduating class at Jefferson High School. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and graduated summa cum laude in 1927, again as the valedictorian of his class. Using the money his community raised for his studies, and a graduate scholarship at Harvard University, he earned a doctorate in political science. To help with his living expenses while at Harvard, Bunche sought a job at a local bookstore. The owner offered him a part-time job, and Bunche ran the store to his employer's satisfaction. One day the owner called him into the office and said, "Folks tell me you're a Negro. I don't give a damn, but are you?" Bunche asked, "What did you think?" and the owner said, "I couldn't see you clear enough." Bunche was multiracial, and showed his European as well as African ancestry.

Bunche earned a master's degree in political science in 1928 and a doctorate in 1934, while he was already teaching in Howard University's Department of Political Science. It was typical then for doctoral candidates to start teaching before completion of their dissertations. He was the first Negro to gain a PhD in political science from an American university. He published his first book, World View of Race, in 1936. From 1936 to 1938, Ralph Bunche conducted postdoctoral research in anthropology at the London School of Economics (LSE), and later at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.