The Ralph Bunche Centenary Commemoration Committee (RBCCC)

Internal Management Group (IMG) and its Secretariat

Local Committees - "Legacy Cities"

The Ralph Bunche Centenary Commemoration Committee (RBCCC)

The Ralph Bunche Centenary Commemoration Committee (RBCCC)
The “Ralph Bunche Centenary Commemoration Committee” (RBCCC), organized in April 2001, has expanded from an original 12-person Planning Group to include nearly 100 prominent persons and Bunche scholars supportive of the initiative to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Dr. Bunche’s birth. More than sixty professional societies, education institutions, and public policy organizations have become associated with the centenary commemoration as “participating organizations.” Each has been asked to plan appropriate activities for the period August 2003-August 2004. The participating organizations, in addition to those based in the U.S., exist in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Hawaii, Jamaica, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, South Africa, Scotland, Switzerland, and Sweden.

For additional information regarding public relations and activity opportunities, please contact William H. Smith, President, Pevue, Inc. 365 Boston Post Road #300, Sudburry, MA 01776. Tel. 978-443-2928. Email: mailto:pevueinc@attbi.com

The RBCCC has established a nine-person Internal Management Group (IMG) under the chairmanship of Benjamin Rivlin, who also serves as director of the Centenary’s Secretariat. The other members of the IMG are: Herschelle Challenor, James T. L. Dandridge, II, Lawrence S. Finkelstein, Badi Foster, Terence A. Todman, Brian Urquhart, Scott Waugh, and Thomas G. Weiss. The Secretariat, whose members are Benjamin Rivlin, Diana Cassells, Nancy Okada, and Letizia Paoloni, is located at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies of the CUNY Graduate Center in New York. The IMG and its Secretariat serve as motivator, catalyst, and clearinghouse striving to attain the three major objectives of the Centenary plan: to see that the memory of Bunche is enhanced and supported through activities emphasizing his legacy; to stimulate younger scholars to delve into his contributions across the broad range of his interests and involvements; and to stimulate programs that reach out to younger people by interesting school systems in introducing the legacy of Ralph Bunche into their curricula and in other ways.

Members of the Ralph Bunche Centenary Committee IMG, Legacy Cities and Secretariat attend closing event in the Kluge Room of the Library of Congress on December 13, 2004.

To date the Secretaiat has undertaken the following initiatives:

The Crisis Magazine

The RBCCC has obtained the permission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to reprint and circulate nationwide the January 1972 edition of The Crisis magazine, which was a commemorative issue dedicated to the life of Ralph Bunche, published one month after his death. The IMG is exploring sponsors to underwrite the cost of the reprints

Leaders Conference

On January 8, 2003 the Ralph Bunche Centenary Committee with support from the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute and assisted by the Phelps Stokes Fund hosted a one-day Leadership Conference at the Charles Summer School in Washington, D.C. The conference was attended by educators, media executives, scholars, business and civic leaders and the three Co-Chairs of the Ralph Bunche Centenary Commemoration Committee. The conferees explored opportunities for collaboration, and engaged in brainstorming, networking and strategic planning for centenary projects not only for the centenary observance year but for the far future.

On April 8, a follow up conference was held in Washington, DC (More to come)

Ralph Bunche Centenary Commemoration Workshop

The RBCCC held a one-day workshop at The CUNY Graduate Center in New York on Friday October 4, 2002. The theme was “The Contemporary Relevance of the Ralph Bunche Legacy.”

The workshop brought together a wide spectrum of participants to discuss strategies that would enable the Internal Management Group (IMG) to move ahead with finalizing the funding and operational plans for the Centenary. One of the purposes of the workshop was to brainstorm about mobilizing resources for the activities of the secretariat and programs in the legacy cities.

To view the workshop report, click here.

Ralph Bunche Societies

The Centenary Commemoration Committee is supporting the formation of Ralph Bunche Societies on campuses. This is part of the strategy to establish permanent programs that use the legacy of Ralph Bunche to promote mediation as a means of solving problems in society, as well as a means of bringing diverse people together in service to others. A Ralph Bunche Society has been in operation for a number of years at the Fletcher School for International Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University . This may serve as a model in establishing Ralph Bunche Societies on campuses elsewhere. This initiative will be coordinated by the Secretariat in collaboration with the Phelps-Stokes Fund.

For further information, please contact Flora L. Mutuku flora.mutuku@tufts.edu or Kelly Smith kelly_m.smith@tufts.edu at Tuft University.

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The IMG has encouraged the development of local committees for the Ralph Bunche commemoration in six cities that played a significant role in Bunche's life. These are cities where he spent significant time and had experiences that influenced his development and maturity as a statesmen of historic accomplishments. These “legacy cities” are: Detroit, where he was born on August 7, 1903 and spent his early childhood; Albuquerque, where he moved in 1915; Los Angeles, where he was raised, developed his basic academic skills at UCLA (B.A. 1927), and began showing signs of brilliance as a student and athlete and initially articulated his interest in public service; Cambridge/Boston, where he excelled in his graduate studies at Harvard University (M.A. 1928; Ph.D. 1934) and began to more fully develop and hone his academic skills; Washington, D.C., where he organized and chaired the political science department at Howard University (1929-1941) where he manifested his prowess as a scholar-activist, and later began his service in the Office of Strategic Services (1941-1944) and in the State Department (1944-1946); and New York City, where the impact of his contributions and service took on legendary proportions through his work at the United Nations (from 1949 to his death in 1971).

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Activities That Have Taken Place:

• December 6, 2001 - Jefferson High School Assembly honoring Dr. Bunche.

• December 7, 2001 - Community celebration of Ralph Bunche at the Dunbar Hotel.

• April 2002 - The Jefferson High School administrative building was renamed the Dr. Ralph J. Bunche Administrative Hall.

• The Thomas Jefferson Community Adult School, UCLA, the L.A. Community, and the Dunbar Economic Development Corporation joined in celebrating the dedication of Ralph Bunche’s childhood home on August 7, 2002. The restoration made the home a museum.

• August 21, 2002 - Installation of commissioned work of art honoring Dr. Bunche in the Ralph Bunche Administrative Hall at Jefferson High School.

• September 2002 - Start of monthly Jazz concerts at the Dunbar Hotel in honor of Dr. Bunche. They were held every second Sunday from 2:00-5:00 p.m. Each month a different school was asked to make a presentation about Dr. Bunche.

• October 24, 2002 (UN created on October 24, 1945) - Unveiling of the commissioned artwork with invitations going to various national and local dignitaries. T-shirts were designed to honor Dr. Bunche for the October 24, 2002 celebration.

• A Dr. Ralph J. Bunche Peace Award was awarded to a Jefferson High School student who modeled peace in the community. The design of the award incorporated the Peace Form one monument honoring Dr. Bunche, located across from the United Nations building in New York.

Activities Underway

Curriculum Development and Student involvement

Since the UCLA International Institute hosts a model UN every year, the Committee is trying to make Ralph Bunche and his work the guiding vision or topic for next year’s model UN. The International Institute is also hosting a Summer Institute for teachers on UN conflict resolution, and the focus for next summer’s institute could be on the contributions and life work of Ralph Bunche.

The National Center for History in the Schools is developing a five-lesson curriculum unit on the life and achievements of Ralph Bunche to serve students in World History (Grade 10), U.S. History (Grade 11), and Civics (Grade 12). This curriculum can be used to supplement the study of race relations in the 1920s and 1930s, World War II, the Arab Israeli conflict, postwar decolonization, the Cold War, and the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The project could be completed by March 2003 and ready for the 2003-04 school year. All of these K-12 projects will be coordinated with the “Successor Generation” Program that is being created by the Washington, DC Bunche Centenary Committee together with the Phelps-Stokes Fund, and with the National Centenary Committee.

The office of Community Relations at UCLA is planning to involve the youth of Los Angeles in the commemoration of Ralph Bunche. The City of L.A. Youth Council and the Urban League are working to get youth out to a September 12 conflict resolution day event.

Kick-off Centenary Event, August 7, 2003

This event will take place at Thomas Jefferson High School, Bunche's high school alma mater. The program will include remarks by local officials and other dignitaries, presentations to the 2003 graduates of the Dunbar EDC Bunche Youth Leadership Academy, and special guest speaker Vera De Vera, Western Regional Director of the Fannie Mae Foundation and former Bunche Scholar at UCLA.

Contact: Myron Wolfe, (323) 232-2261

Exhibits By UCLA’s Charles E. Young Research Library of Bunche holdings, August 7, 2003 through spring 2004

Home to one of the most extensive collections of Bunche’s papers in the world, the library’s special collections department plans two displays:

• A preliminary digital exhibition of highlights from the Bunche Collection will go online Aug. 7 at http://www.library.ucla.edu/bunche. A more comprehensive version will launch later this fall.

• A three-month physical display of the library’s Bunche holdings will go on view from January to March 2004. The exhibit “…the great good that is in us” A Centenary Celebration of Ralph J. Bunche commemorates Bunche’s remarkable legacy by focusing on his accomplishments in three main areas: as a student, a scholar, and a diplomat.

The online exhibit is part of the international celebration of the centenary of Bunche’s birth.
Contact: Dawn Setzer, (310) 825-0746, dsetzer@library.ucla.edu.

2003 UCLA Founders Day celebration on October 26

The event honors the university’s past, celebrates its present and anticipates its vibrant future. The section of the program focusing on the past will include a video montage on Bunche. Debbie Allen, the accomplished dancer, actor, director and producer, will perform, and UCLA Chancellor Carnesale will speak. The event takes place at noon on Sunday, Oct. 26, in Royce Hall.

UCLA Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies Naming Ceremony, October 9, 2003

The interdisciplinary center that coordinates instruction and research on African-American subjects at UCLA has been named after the campus’s most famous alum. Festivities include:

• Ceremony presided over by UCLA Chancellor Albert Carnesale.

• Presentation of a new portrait of Bunche by popular artist LeRoy Neiman, a UCLA benefactor. The portrait will hang prominently in the center.

• Revealing identity of honorary holder of the Ralph J. Bunche Chair in International Relations (a permanent selection is anticipated next year).

For more information, please visit:
http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?id=4582

Contact: Alex Tucker, (310) 206-8267, atucker@caas.ucla.edu.

Grades 9–12 education planning guide entitled “The Life and Work of Ralph Bunche”

Teaching unit for Grades 9-12: The National Center for History in the Schools has created a new teaching unit on Bunche. For further information, visit the center's Web site or call 310/825-4702.

Academic Symposia Honoring Bunche's Contributions to American Intellectual Life and to African Independence, Spring, 2004

Two separate conferences are planned:

• Ralph Bunche Center for African American Studies, UCLA

BUNCHE - SCHOLAR, ACTIVIST & BUREAUCRAT

On Friday and Saturday, February 20th and 21st, 2004, the Ralph J. Bunche Center brought together leading scholars of the last 10 years on the collaboration of Ralph Bunche and Gunnar Myrdal.

2004 marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy , an investigation into American race relations, conducted by Myrdal as principal investigator, and Ralph Bunche (then chairman of Howard University's Political Science department) as chief collaborator. In An American Dilemma Myrdal documents the conditions under which Americans of African descent lived during the first half of the twentieth century. His study offered scholars and political leaders useful evidence of the enduring effects of slavery and racism, and has inspired much analysis and intellectual debate in the latter half of the 20th century.

Ralph Bunche and Gunnar Myrdal were also remarkable human beings. In 1950, Bunche won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work as a United Nations diplomat on the Arab-Israeli conflict in the early years of the state of Israel . Myrdal shared the 1974 Nobel Prize with Friedrich August von Hayek for (according to the Nobel Committee) his "penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena." In 1982 Myrdal's wife Alva won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in UN disarmament negotiations and activism to promote disarmament.

The Myrdal's and Bunche have also been the subjects of fascinating biographical studies. There has been lively scholarly debate about the intersection of their personal lives and commitment to progressive causes. For example, Bunche's ideological position at the time of his collaboration with Myrdal has been depicted as that of a "vulgar Marxist" in contrast to Myrdal's perspective of viewing the American racial problem as one of caste rather than class. There is also the problem of interpreting the kinds of transformations both Myrdal and Bunche made in their later lives. Bunche went from being considered a radical during the time of his association with Myrdal to being all but tossed aside during the civil rights upheavals of the 1960s. From studying inequality at the national level Myrdal went on to study international inequality and development. Bunche became perhaps the best-known African-American diplomat of the 20th century despite never having served as an ambassador for the US State Department. Myrdal is now considered by some to be the greatest of all Swedish social scientists.

The symposium consisted of four panels - two in the morning and two in the afternoon. Panel 1 brought together scholars who have produced biographies (books and video) on Ralph Bunche. Panel 2 featured critical presentations and exchanges between scholars who have been engaged in interpreting and re-interpreting the work that went into producing An American Dilemma. Panel 3 explored the question of race and its impact on Bunche's diplomatic career. Titled "An American Dilemma - Sixty Years Later", Panel 4 examined Bunche and Myrdal's contributions to the study of the ecology of social theory in the United States.

The detailed program can be found in the attached pdf file.

• UCLA’s African Studies Center and Globalization Research Center-Africa will host a Spring, 2004 conference on Bunche’s tremendous impact on the decolonization of Africa.

The conference, "Trustee for the Human Community": Ralph Bunche and the Decolonization of Africa," will be held on June3-4, 2004, and is organized by the Marcus Garvey Papers Project and the Globalization Research Center-Africa under the auspices of the James. S. Coleman African Studies Center. For more information, visit the Research Center Web site.

Contact: Letisia Marquez, (310) 206-3986, lmarquez@suppport.ucla.edu.

Kenny Burrell premieres musical composition in honor of Bunche

Kenny Burrell, UCLA professor of music and ethnomusicology, founder and director of the university’s jazz studies, and one of the all-time greatest jazz guitarists, will premiere a commissioned musical composition in honor of Bunche on June 10 in Schoenberg Hall.

Activities under consideration

• Unveiling of a new poster marking the centennial by prominent Los Angeles muralist Judy Baca, art professor with UCLA’s César E. Chávez Center for Interdisciplinary Instruction.

• Coordination by the Bunche Center and UCLA Government and Community Relations of efforts to secure governmental proclamations honoring Bunche’s contributions and his family.

Contact: Carlene Brown, 310-825-4017, carleneb@college.ucla.edu.

Kick-off Centenary event

In recognition of the Ralph Bunche Centenary Commemoration (August 2003 - August 2004), the Washington Ralph Bunche Centenary Committee will launch the Washington region year-long commemoration of the legacy of Dr. Ralph Johnson Bunche with an induction ceremony honoring eighteen DC Public Schools high school students who have completed the three-week Ralph Bunche Scholars Summer Institute.

Educational Outreach

• “Successor Generation” educational outreach programs will focus on youth, K-12 and university level. This is the principal program of the committee that will be Beta tested in Washington and shared with other legacy cities at the completion of the project development. DC Public Schools K-12 Curricula phase, August 2003. DC Public Schools Teachers’ summer workshop, summer 2003 - Phelps Stokes Fund and the Washington DC School System.
  
• Ralph Bunche Read, Write and Share program. Phelps Stokes Fund. Fall 2003.
  
• Ralph Bunche Leadership Development program. Phelps Stokes Fund. Fall 2003.
  
• Philip Merrill Fellowship Essay Contest and two-year MA scholarship dedicated to the legacy of Dr. Ralph Bunche. - Paul Nitze School of International Affairs, John Hopkins University and the American Academy of Diplomacy. 2003 and 2004.
  
• Bunche Fellowship (Training in foreign languages and area studies). Essay competition - United Negro College Fund.
  
• The Ralph Bunche Read, Write and Share Initiative (RBI): Volunteerism and Character Education. High quality books sent to underserved schools and public libraries in the United States and Africa, where shelves are bare and/or lack sufficient educational materials - Phelps Stokes Fund.
  
• Ralph Bunche Summer Institute
  This first-ever Ralph Bunche Scholars Summer Institute was an intensive summer enrichment program co-sponsored by the DC Public Schools Office of Advanced Programs and the Office of International Programs, with financial support from the United Nations Foundation, and assistance from members of the local Bunche Centenary Committee. As the Washington “Successor Generation” anchor program, it was designed for students interested in world affairs, and particularly those considering international careers. Those students who complete the program are designated Ralph Bunche Scholars, and will continue to meet throughout the school year to continue their educational program and to educate other students and community members about the life and legacy of Ralph Bunche. The August 7 induction ceremony marks the beginning of the celebration of the legacy of a great American!
  

  Ralph Bunche Scholars Program Closing Event

  On August 2, 2004 the Washington Regional Ralph Bunche centenary Coordinating Committee and the District of Columbia Public Schools celebrated the closing of the Ralph Bunche Scholars 2003-2004 Program. The program exposed DCPS students and teachers to he life and legacy of Dr. Bunche and the challenges of global citizenship. The programs developed in Washington will be made available for implementation nationwide.
  

• Establishment of Ralph Bunche Societies in HBCUs and other colleges and universities in the Washington regional corridor area - Washington Coordinating Committee.
  

• The Ralph Bunche Library, US Department of State. September 18, 2003.
  
• Distinguished Lecturer, Sir Brian Urquhart - National Defense University - September 24, 2003.
  
• Ralph J. Bunche Africa Leadership Policy Round-table - Constituency for Africa 2003 Ronald H. Brown African Affairs Series - September 25.
  
• Lunch and Learn program, UN Day celebration (Bunche emphasis), and Bunche article in UN Vision - United Nations Association of the National Capital Area.
  
• Two Bunche seminars; Global Aids and Women in Africa -Global Alliance for Women's Health.