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Ralph J. Bunche House
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Ralph J. Bunche House, 2008
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| Location: | 1221 E. 40th Pl., Los Angeles, California |
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| Built: | 1919 |
| Architect: | Unknown |
| Architectural style: | Victorian-Bungalow |
| Governing body: | Private |
| NRHP Reference#: |
78000686 [1] |
| Added to NRHP: | May 22, 1978 |
Ralph J. Bunche House, also known as the Ralph Bunche Peace & Heritage Center, was the Victorian-Bungalow style boyhood home of Nobel Peace Prize winner Ralph Bunche located in South Los Angeles. It was declared a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument-HCM #159 by the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission in 1976, and listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.
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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.[2] He was the first person of color from any country to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.[3] 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.[4] 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.[5]
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]
The home has since been preserved and furnished with photographs and memorabilia from Bunche's life. It is 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, winning a Los Angeles Conservancy preservation award in 2006.[9][10] 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."[11]
The Dr. Ralph J. Bunche Peace and Heritage Center Oral History Project is 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 will be permanently displayed at the Ralph J. Bunche House.[12]
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