He was involved in the formation and early administration of the United Nations (UN), and played a major role in both the decolonization process and numerous UN peacekeeping operations.

He then served on the American delegation to the first session of the United Nations General Assembly in 1946 and joined the UN as head of the Trusteeship Department, beginning a long series of troubleshooting roles and responsibilities related to decolonization.

Bunche continued to serve at the UN, working on crises in the Sinai (1956), the Congo (1960), Yemen (1963), Cyprus (1964) and Bahrain in 1970, reporting directly to the UN Secretary-General.

His mother, "a musically inclined woman who contributed much to what her son called a household 'bubbling over with ideas and opinions'", died in 1917 from tuberculosis,[4] and his uncle shortly thereafter.

[5] Thereafter, Bunche was raised by his maternal grandmother, Lucy Taylor Johnson, whom he credited with instilling in him his pride in his race and his self-belief.

He attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as a political science student,[4] and graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa[8] in 1927 as the valedictorian of his class.

Using the money his community raised for his studies and a graduate scholarship at Harvard University, he earned a doctorate in political science.

In 1940, Bunche served as the chief research associate to Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal's landmark study of racial dynamics in the U.S., An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy.

[17] Near the close of World War II in 1944, Bunche took part in planning for the United Nations at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, held in Washington, D.C.

His work to end colonialism began early in his academic career, during which time he developed into a leading scholar and expert of the impact of colonialism on subjugated people, and developed close relationships with many anti-colonialism leaders and intellectuals from the Caribbean and Africa, in particular during his field research and his time at the London School of Economics.

[9] At a speech in Cleveland, Bunche said: "The modern world has come to the realisation that there is a great moral issue involved in the perpetuation of the colonial system.

In 1948, he traveled to the Middle East as the chief aide to Sweden's Count Folke Bernadotte, who had been appointed by the UN to mediate the conflict.

The representative for Israel was Moshe Dayan; he reported in memoirs that much of his delicate negotiation with Bunche was conducted over a billiard table while the two were shooting pool.

[23][6] He continued to work for the United Nations, mediating in other strife-torn regions, including the Congo, Yemen, Kashmir, and Cyprus.

While at the UN, Bunche forged a close bond with his friend and colleague, Ambassador Charles W. Yost, with whom he had worked at the UN founding conference.

Bunche was actively involved in movements for black liberation in his pre-United Nations days, including through leadership positions with various civil rights organizations and as one of the leading scholars on the issue of race in the US and colonialism abroad.

[25] Bunche lived in the Kew Gardens neighborhood of Queens, New York, in a home purchased with his Nobel Prize money, from 1953 until his death.

In 1959, he and his son, Ralph, Jr., were denied membership in the West Side Tennis Club in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens.

[5] During his UN career, Bunche turned down appointments from presidents Harry Truman and John Kennedy, because of the Jim Crow laws still in effect in Washington, D.C.

Historian John Hope Franklin credits him with "creating a new category of leadership among African-Americans" due to his unique ability "to take the power and prestige he accumulated...to address the problems of his community.

[28] While teaching at Howard University in 1928, Bunche met Ruth Harris, who was a first-grade teacher in Washington, D.C.[29] They later started seeing each other and married June 23, 1930.

On October 9, 1966, their daughter Jane Bunche Pierce fell or jumped from the roof of her apartment building in Riverdale, Bronx; her death was believed to be suicide.