Ralph Bunche - Honors

Honors

• In 1949, he was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP.
• In 1951, Bunche was awarded the Silver Buffalo Award by the National Boy Scouts of America for his work in scouting and positive impact for the world.
• On February 11, 1972, the site of his birth in Detroit was listed as a Michigan Historic Site. Mrs. Ruth Bunche attended the unveiling of a historical marker on April 27, 1972.
• On January 12, 1982, the United States Postal Service issued a Great Americans series 20¢ postage stamp in his honor.
• A bust of Dr. Bunche was erected at the entrance to Bunche Hall, named in his honor, at UCLA.
• The Ralph J. Bunche Library of the U.S. Department of State is the oldest Federal government library. Founded by the first Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, in 1789, it was dedicated to and renamed the Ralph J. Bunche Library on May 5, 1997. It is located in the Harry S. Truman Building, the main State Department headquarters.
• In 1996, Howard University named its international affairs center, a physical facility and associated administrative programs, the Ralph J. Bunche International Affairs Center. The Center is the site of lectures and internationally oriented programming.
• Ralph Bunche Park is in New York City, across First Avenue from the United Nations headquarters.
• The neighborhood of Bunche Park in the city of Miami Gardens, Florida, was named in his honor. A neighborhood of West Oakland, home to Ralph Bunche High School, is also known as "Ralph Bunche."
• Elementary schools were named after him in Markham, Illinois; Ecorse, Michigan; Canton, Georgia; Miami, Florida; Fort Wayne, Indiana; and New York City and a high school named after him in King George County, Virginia.
• One of the historically black beaches in Florida, from the age of segregation, has been named Bunche Beach, near Ft. Myers.
• The Dr. Ralph J. Bunche Peace and Heritage Center, his boyhood home with his grandmother, has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places and City of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Landmarks, HCM #159. The building has been restored and is operated as an interpretive house Museum and Community Center.
• In Glasgow, Kentucky, the Liberty District- Ralph Bunche Community Center, to support community relations and cultural understanding, was named in his honor.
• In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante included Ralph Bunche on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.
• In 2004, Ralph Bunche was posthumously honored with the William J. Donovan Award from the OSS Society.
• Ralph Bunche Road in Nairobi, Kenya, is named after him.
• A scholarship at UCLA was named for him. The Ralph Bunche Committee is named for him, in the UCLA Alumni Association's Alumni Scholars Club