A quirky biographical sketch of the sometimes forgotten Nobel
laureate. Though in his youth during the 1930s, as a political
science professor and administrator at Howard University in
Washington, D.C., Bunche gained a reputation as something of an
armchair radical, he became in later life an enduring symbol of
moderation. It was Bunche the research scholar, for example, who
helped to guide and write Gunnar Myrdal's mammoth study of black
Americans following the 1935 Harlem riots. On the international
front, Bunche was called on as a troubleshooter with the United
Nations (where he was director of trusteeship and then
undersecretary) to quell warring factions in the Middle East, the
Congo, and Cyprus. In light of those and other accomplishments,
which included a 1950 Nobel Prize for his Middle East peacemaking
role, Henry (African American Studies/Univ. of Calif., Berkeley)
wonders why, close to half a century later, most Americans,
including blacks, don't seem to know who Bunche was. Perhaps this
was partly Bunche's own fault. Reserved and even staid, he was
unaccustomed to calling attention to himself as either a diplomat
or an academic. In fact, his first government job was with the
Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the CIA, where it's
assumed that reticence is golden - and instrumental. But Henry
wants instead to cast Bunche as a controversial and charismatic
figure, cut to fit the mold of a W.E.B. DuBois. His explorations in
search of this Bunche lead to digressions that would have the
reader believe his book is an excursion into black intellectual
history, with Bunche as an incidental stop along the way. A basic
statement of Bunche's racial views, for instance, becomes a
dissertation on slavery; a movie made about him yields to a long
discourse about the role of African-Americans in the movies. These
digressions cloud our view of the man. (Kirkus Reviews)
"Thoughtful, provocative . . . a first-rate study."
--"Library Journal"
"Not the least of this book's many virtues is the way in which .
. . it bridges the gap between the concern's of Du Bois's day and
those of the civil rights era."
--Times Literary Supplement
"A rich and moving account of the complex life of one of the
most influential black figures in twentieth-century America."
"aHerbert Hill, Evjue-Bascom Professor of African-American Studies,
University of Wisconsin"
"We need this book to remind us of the competent leadership that
we enjoyed in the past."
--"Black Issues Book Review"
"This work is a welcome addition to African American studies as
well as to social and cultural history..."
--"Choice"
Activist, international statesman, reluctant black leader,
scholar, icon, father and husband, Ralph Bunche is one of the most
complicated and fascinating figures in the history of twentieth-
century America. Bunche played a central role in shaping
international relations from the 1940s through the 1960s, first as
chief of the Africa section of the Office of Strategic Services and
then as part of the State Department group working to establish the
United Nations. After moving to the U.N. as Director of
Trusteeship, he became the first black Nobel Laureate in 1950 and
was subsequently named Undersecretary of the U.N.
For nearly a decade, he was the most celebrated contemporary
African American both domestically and abroad. Today he is
virtually forgotten.
Charles Henry's penetrating biography counters this historical
tragedy, recapturing the essence of Bunche's service to America and
the world. Moreover, Henry ably demonstrates how Bunche's riseand
fall as a public symbol tells us as much about America as it does
about Bunche. His iconic status, like that of other prominent,
mainstream black figures like Colin Powell, required a constant
struggle over the relative importance of his racial identity and
his national identity. Henry's biography shines as both the
recovered story of a classic American, and as a case study in the
racial politics of public service.
General
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