SECRETARY-GENERAL TO OPEN HEADQUARTERS EXHIBIT ON WORK OF RALPH BUNCHE
| Press Release Note No. 5823 |
Note to Correspondents
SECRETARY-GENERAL TO OPEN HEADQUARTERS EXHIBIT ON WORK OF RALPH BUNCHE
Secretary-General Kofi Annan will officially open an exhibit on the life and United Nations career of Ralph Johnson Bunche on Friday, 24 October -- United Nations Day -- at 5 p.m. in the Visitors’ Lobby of the General Assembly Building.
Ralph Bunche was a brilliant scholar and eminent professor who became an internationalist. For his meticulous, unflagging and ultimately successful efforts to resolve the first Arab-Israeli conflict in 1949, Norway’s Nobel Institute awarded him the Nobel Prize for Peace on 10 December 1950, making him the first black recipient of that distinguished recognition.
During his quarter-century of devoted service to the United Nations, Ralph Bunche championed the concept of equal rights for everyone, regardless of race or creed. Through the United Nations Trusteeship Council, he readied the international stage for an unprecedented period of transformation, dismantling the old colonial systems in Africa and Asia, and guiding scores of emerging nations through the transition to independence in the post-war era.
He played a prominent role in drafting the United Nations Charter, the foundation on which all principles of the Organization are based. He was determined to fight for what he passionately believed to be humankind’s birthright -- “the right to be treated as an equal by all other men”. He was also a staunch advocate of human rights, and believed that the struggle for civil rights in America was inextricably linked to the wider cause of justice and freedom for people of all races throughout the world.
The exhibit, produced by the United Nations Department of Public Information in collaboration with the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies at the City University of New York Graduate Center, will be on view until 22 November.
For further information, please contact Jan Arnesen at tel.: (212) 963-8531, or Helen Shaskan at tel.: (212) 963-0041.
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