Ralph J. Bunche House

Last updated
Ralph J. Bunche House
Ralph J. Bunche House, Los Angeles.JPG
Ralph J. Bunche House, 2008
USA Los Angeles Metropolitan Area location map.svg
Red pog.svg
USA California location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location1221 E. 40th Place,
Los Angeles, California
Coordinates 34°0′37″N118°15′9″W / 34.01028°N 118.25250°W / 34.01028; -118.25250 Coordinates: 34°0′37″N118°15′9″W / 34.01028°N 118.25250°W / 34.01028; -118.25250
Built1919
Architectural style Victorian-Bungalow
NRHP reference No. 78000686 [1]
LAHCM No.159
Significant dates
Added to NRHPMay 22, 1978
Designated LAHCMJuly 27, 1976

Ralph J. Bunche House, also known as the Ralph Bunche Peace & Heritage Center and located in South Los Angeles, United States, was the Victorian-Bungalow style boyhood home of Nobel Peace Prize winner Ralph Bunche. It was declared a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument (No. 159) by the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission in 1976, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

Contents

Bunche's boyhood home

Bunche was born in Detroit, Michigan and later lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but moved to Los Angeles to live with his maternal grandmother when his mother died in 1917. Bunche and his sister, Grace, were raised at the house on 40th Place by their grandmother, Lucy Taylor Johnson, their two aunts (Nelle and Ethel), and their uncle Thomas Johnson. [2] While living in Los Angeles, Bunche became the valedictorian at both Jefferson High School, one-half block away, and UCLA, then located at Vermont Avenue and Melrose. Bunche was also a star basketball player while at UCLA. [3] Bunche won the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in negotiating and drafting the 1949 Armistice Agreements that ended the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. [4] He was the first person of color from any country to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. [5]

Restoration and museum

Bunche House Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument marker. Historic Marker on Ralph J. Bunche House.JPG
Bunche House Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument marker.

Bunche's boyhood home fell into disrepair and suffered from vandalism and graffiti in the 1980s and 1990s. The house sat vacant for a decade, "used only by squatters, taggers, gang members, and vagrants." [6]

In 1996, the home was acquired by the Dunbar Economic Development Corp., a nonprofit group with plans to turn it into a museum. The group's plans were delayed by a lack of funding until the California Community Foundation issued a $100,000 interest-free loan in 1999. [7]

After a 1999 news report about funding delays and graffiti covering the home, Mayor Richard Riordan donned a hardhat and joined a work crew in cleaning up the home. [8] [9]

Dr. Ralph J. Bunche Peace & Heritage Center

The home was preserved and furnished with photographs and memorabilia from Bunche's life. It operated as the Dr. Ralph J. Bunche Peace & Heritage Center, an interpretive museum and community center to promote peaceful interaction of all groups within South Central Los Angeles. The property was fully restored between 2002 and 2004, by Design Aid Architects, winning a Los Angeles Conservancy preservation award in 2006. [10] [11] That year, the house was described in the Los Angeles Times as "brilliant, with sunlight streaming through modified bay windows, scrubbed wood floors and an airy parlor/den/dining room." [12]

Oral history project

The Dr. Ralph J. Bunche Peace and Heritage Center Oral History Project was a joint venture with UCLA intended to collect oral histories on Bunche's life in Los Angeles as well as the Central Avenue and Dunbar Hotel community in South Los Angeles. The oral histories collected by the project were displayed at the Ralph J. Bunche House until about 2011, when they were moved to UCLA. [13]

The house now operates as a private residence.

See also

Related Research Articles

Ralph Bunche American diplomat

Ralph Johnson Bunche was an American political scientist, academic, and diplomat who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his late 1940s mediation in Israel. He was the first African American to be so honored. He was involved in the formation and administration of the United Nations and played a major role in numerous peacekeeping operations sponsored by the UN. In 1963, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President John F. Kennedy.

LeDroit Park United States historic place

LeDroit Park is a neighborhood in Washington, D.C. located immediately southeast of Howard University. Its borders include W Street to the north, Rhode Island Avenue and Florida Avenue to the south, Second Street NW to the east, and Howard University to the west. LeDroit Park is known for its history and 19th century protected architecture. The community's diversity entices new residents to the community, as well as its close proximity to the Shaw–Howard University Metro station and many dining options.

Central Avenue (Los Angeles) street in Los Angeles, California, United States

Central Avenue is a major north-south thoroughfare in the central portion of the Los Angeles, California metropolitan area. Located just to the west of the Alameda Corridor, it runs south from the eastern end of the Los Angeles Civic Center down to the east side of California State University, Dominguez Hills and terminating at East Del Amo Boulevard in Carson.

The Ralph J. Bunche Library, formerly the State Department Library, is the oldest federal government library in the United States. The library is currently located in room 3239 of the Harry S Truman Building.

Ralph Johnson Bunche House United States historic place

Ralph Johnson Bunche House, the last home of American diplomat Ralph Bunche (1903-1971), is a National Historic Landmark in New York City. It is a single-family home built in 1927 in the neo-Tudor style, and is located at 115-24 Grosvenor Road, Kew Gardens, Queens. It is named after Ralph Bunche, who helped to found the United Nations in 1945. In 1950 he became the first African American and first person of color to win the Nobel Peace Prize, for mediating armistice agreements between Israel and its neighboring countries.

Ralph Bunche High School United States historic place

Ralph Bunche High School was a school constructed in 1949 as a result of Civil Action 631 to provide "separate but equal" education for African-American students in King George County, Virginia. The school operated until 1968 when King George High School was completed and the county's schools integrated. The school was named for Ralph Bunche, an African-American educator, diplomat and Nobel Prize winner.

Dunbar Hotel United States historic place

The Dunbar Hotel, originally known as the Hotel Somerville, was the focal point of the Central Avenue African-American community in Los Angeles, California, during the 1930s and 1940s. Built in 1928, it was known for its first year as the Hotel Somerville. Upon its opening, it hosted the first national convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to be held in the western United States. In 1930, the hotel was renamed the Dunbar, and it became the most prestigious hotel in LA's African-American community. In the early 1930s, a nightclub opened at the Dunbar, and it became the center of the Central Avenue jazz scene in the 1930s and 1940s. The Dunbar hosted Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Count Basie, Lena Horne, and many other jazz legends. Other noteworthy people who stayed at the Dunbar include W. E. B. Du Bois, Joe Louis, Ray Charles, and Thurgood Marshall. Former heavyweight champion Jack Johnson also ran a nightclub at the Dunbar in the 1930s.

Storer House (Los Angeles) United States historic place

Storer House is a Frank Lloyd Wright house in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles built in 1923. The structure is noteworthy as one of the four Mayan Revival style textile-block houses built by Wright in the Los Angeles area from 1922 to 1924.

Granada Shoppes and Studios United States historic place

Granada Shoppes and Studios, also known as the Granada Buildings, is an imaginative, Mediterranean Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival style block-long complex consisting of four courtyard-connected structures, in Central Los Angeles, California. It was built immediately to the southeast of Lafayette Park in the Westlake District, in 1927.

Ralphs Grocery Store (Los Angeles, California) United States historic place

Ralphs Grocery Store is a historic building in the Westwood Village section of Westwood, Los Angeles, California. Built in 1929 as a Ralphs Grocery Store, it was one of the original six buildings in the Westwood Village development. The building was noted for its cylindrical rotunda capped by a low saucer dome, with a pediment over the entrance and arcaded wings extending north and east. It was photographed by Ansel Adams in 1940, declared a Historic-Cultural Monument in 1988, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

Ralph Bunche House may refer to:

Second Baptist Church (Los Angeles) United States historic place

Second Baptist Church is a historically African-American Baptist church located in South Los Angeles, California. The current Lombardy Romanesque Revival building was built in 1926 and has been listed as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument (1978) and on the National Register of Historic Places (2009). The church has been an important force in the Civil Rights Movement, hosting national conventions of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored Persons ("NAACP") in 1928, 1942, and 1949, and also serving as the site of important speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and others. It is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA and the Progressive National Baptist Convention.

Ralph Bunche House (Washington, D.C.) United States historic place

Ralph Bunche House was the home Ralph Bunche commissioned from Hilyard Robinson in 1941. It is located at 1510 Jackson Street, Northeast, Washington, D.C., United States, in the Brookland neighborhood.

The Ralph J. Bunche International Affairs Center is a research, educational and professional development center for international affairs at Howard University in Washington, D.C.. The center was founded in 1993 to serve as a resource center for students interested in pursuing careers in foreign affairs and to process subject-related inquiries from outside entities like government agencies, NGOs, corporations, other universities and foreign embassies.

Parkway Village (Queens) United States historic place

Parkway Village is a garden apartment complex with 675 residential units, located on 35 acres (14 ha) in the Briarwood section of Queens in New York City. It was completed in 1947 to house United Nations employees and delegates, many of whom had faced racial discrimination when they sought housing in other areas.

Maynard Lyndon was an American architect. He designed over 40 school buildings in Michigan and California, including the Northville School, known as "the first modern public school in North America". He also designed Bunche Hall on the UCLA campus.

Ralph Bunche may refer to:

References

  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. April 15, 2008.
  2. John D. Weaver (1975-09-21). "In Pursuit of a Peacemaker". Los Angeles Times.
  3. "UCLA Names Building for Ralph Bunche". Los Angeles Times. 1968-06-30.
  4. Benjamin Rivlin, "Vita: Ralph Johnson Bunche: Brief life of a champion of human dignity: 1903-1971", Harvard Magazine, Nov. 2003.
  5. Ralph Bunche, PBS.
  6. "Bunche House: Dr. Ralph J. Bunche Peace and Heritage Center". Congressman Xavier Becerra.
  7. "Foundation Makes Loan to Restore Bunche Home". Los Angeles Times. 1999-03-10.
  8. "Riordan Cuts Red Tape to Begin Restoration of Nobelist's Home". Los Angeles Times. 1999-03-12.
  9. Samudio, Jeffrey. "2006 LA Conservancy Preservation Award". Facebook. Jeffrey B. Samudio, Principal. Retrieved 9 March 2017.
  10. "2006 PRESERVATION AWARD DELIBERATIONS UNDER WAY". Los Angeles Conservancy.
  11. Andre Coleman (2006-05-18). "(Kid)space preserved". Pasadena Weekly.
  12. Erin Aubry Kaplan (2006-04-19). "On and off Central Ave". Los Angeles Times.
  13. "The Dr. Ralph J. Bunche Peace and Heritage Center Oral History Project". UCLA.