Ralph J. Bunche (1904-1977) was a political scientist, diplomat, and civil rights leader who won the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his mediation of the conflict between Israel and Egypt. He served on countless UN commissions, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and Ebony magazine called him perhaps the most influential African American of the first half of the twentieth century. He was chair of the political science department at Howard University for more than two decades.