Ralph Bunche
(1904-1971)

African-American Diplomat
1st Person of Color to Win Nobel Peace Prize
1950 Nobel Peace Prize Winner
1963 Presidential Medal of Freedom

birthdate: August 7
birthplace:
Detroit, Michigan

QUOTES

EQUALITY
We must adhere strongly to the basic principle that anything less than full equality is not enough. If we compromise on that principle our soul is dead.

FREEDOM
The well-being and the hopes of the peoples of the world can never be served until peace - as well as freedom, honor and self-respect - is secure.

HUNGER
Peace is no mere matter of men fighting or not fighting. Peace, to have meaning for many who have known only suffering in both peace and war, must be translated into bread or rice, shelter, health, and education, as well as freedom and human dignity - a steadily better life. If peace is to be secure, long-suffering and long-starved, forgotten peoples of the world, the underprivileged and the undernourished, must begin to realize without delay the promise of a new day and a new life.

PEACE
May there be, in our time, at long last, a world at peace in which we, the people, may for once begin to make full use of the great good that is in us.

ROOT CAUSES
Man has but little heeded the advice of the wise men. He has been - fatefully, if not willingly - less virtuous, less constant, less rational, less peaceful than he knows how to be, than he is fully capable of being. He has been led astray from the ways of peace and brotherhood by his addiction to concepts and attitudes of narrow nationalism, racial and religious bigotry, greed and lust for power.

In his scientific genius, man has wrought material miracles and has transformed his world. He has harnassed nature and has developed great civilizations. But he has never learned very well how to live with himself. The values he has created have been predominantly materialistic; his spiritual values have lagged far behind. He has demonstrated little spiritual genius and has made little progress toward the realization of human brotherhood. In the contemporary atomic age, this could prove man's fatal weakness.

Man's inventive genius has so far outstretched his reason - not his capacity to reason but his willingness to apply reason - that the peoples of the world find themselves precariously on the brink of total disaster.

UNITED NATIONS
The United Nations exists not merely to preserve the peace but also to make change - even radical change - possible without violent upheaval. The United Nations has no vested interest in the status quo. It seeks a more secure world, a better world, a world of progress for all peoples. In the dynamic world society which is the objective of the United Nations, all peoples must have equality and equal rights.

The United Nations stands for the freedom and equality of all peoples, irrespective of race, religion, or ideology.

 

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