September 22, 1950: Ralph Bunche Learns He Has Won the Nobel Peace Prize

Today in 1950 · Friday, September 22, 1950

Ralph Bunche, UN mediator and 1950 Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Ralph Bunche, UN mediator and 1950 Nobel Peace Prize laureate · U.S. government photo, National Archives, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

On this day in 1950, a cable reached Ralph J. Bunche with news that made history twice over: the Norwegian Nobel Committee had awarded him the Nobel Peace Prize — making the 46-year-old American diplomat the first African American, and the first person of color anywhere, to win a Nobel Prize.

The citation honored Bunche 'for his work as mediator in Palestine in 1948-1949.' He had inherited the hardest job on earth in the worst way: when UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte was assassinated in Jerusalem in September 1948, Bunche, his deputy, stepped into the role — and through months of patient, grinding shuttle negotiation on the island of Rhodes, produced the 1949 armistice agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

The formal ceremony waited until December 10 in Oslo, where Bunche delivered his acceptance speech as a serving UN official on loan from the US State Department. The grandson of a slave had become the world's most honored peacemaker — a fact America of 1950, with its segregated capital, was left to sit with.

Also on this day

  • President Truman vetoed the McCarran Internal Security Act, warning it would 'put the Government of the United States in the thought control business'; the House overrode the veto the same day.
  • Omar Bradley was promoted to General of the Army — the nation's fifth five-star general.
  • The US 1st Marine Regiment fought into Seoul's western districts.

🎵 On the radio that week: America’s No. 1 song was “Goodnight Irene” by Gordon Jenkins and The Weavers (Billboard best sellers) — Billboard's top record of 1950, topping the sales, jukebox and disc-jockey charts alike. That sound never really left — we recreate 1950s doo-wop and slow-dance ballads every week: read the stories behind our songs or listen on the lovesong1950s channel.
🎬 At the movies: “My Blue Heaven” held the nation's No. 1 spot for a second straight week, with “Sunset Boulevard” right behind at No. 2 (Variety).
⚾ In sports: The Phillies' famous collapse began — Brooklyn won twice at Shibe Park to slice the lead to five — while the Yankees seized the AL with a shutout of Boston and four straight over Washington.

Sources: NobelPrize.org: Peace 1950 · Norwegian Nobel Institute: 1950 laureate · UN: Ralph Bunche, 1950 · UCLA Bunche Center · Billboard best-seller charts, 1950 (issue scans) · Variety National Boxoffice Survey, 1950 (Lantern scans) · Retrosheet 1950 game logs and box scores. Every fact above is drawn from the records linked here — no dramatization, no invented details.

More from this series: Today in 1950 — the daily archive · every post from September 2026

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