"...the realm of the scholarly": Harvard University
"I have definitely decided to cast my lot in the realm of the scholarly rather than the purely legal, and from now on will bend every effort toward the attainment of the Ph.D."
-- Letter to C.H. Rieber, October 26, 1927
Flyer for fundraiser, 1927
Ralph Bunche earned a fellowship from Harvard University to pursue graduate study. However, the fellowship covered only tuition; to pay for transportation to Massachusetts and living expenses, his aunt Nelle and uncle Tom presented concerts and local churches, and a woman named Alice Patton, who had heard his UCLA commencement speech, led the members of her Iroquois Friday Morning Civic and Social Club of Los Angeles to raise $1,000. The
pages of a scrapbook reveal some of the items related to those fundraising efforts. Many years later Bunche sent a check to his uncle Tom’s grandson, who was going to Yale University, "in recollection . . . of the good will and generosity of the black women of the Friday Morning Club of Los Angeles who in 1927 helped me to Harvard." (letter to Ronald Taylor, August 27, 1969)
Page from scrapbook, 1927
Although most blacks attending college at that time were planning careers in law, medicine, or the ministry, Bunche decided to study political science and to pursue an academic career. His decision was a brave one, as he had had no black professors at UCLA or Harvard to serve as role models, and the ranks of leading black universities were then limited to Atlanta, Fisk, and Howard.
Bunche expanded on his decision in a letter to C.H. Rieber, professor of philosophy and dean of the College of Liberal Arts at UCLA, who was both an advisor and a mentor to him and who he kept in touch with long after his years at UCLA. In it he commented on the weather, his professors, his major, and his first love, sports: "Harvard must be content to boast of its intellectual achievements this year for the football team is pathetic." He then declared his determination to become a scholar:
I have definitely decided to cast my lot in the realm of the scholarly rather than the purely legal, and from now on will bend every effort toward the attainment of the Ph.D. The conversations which I was fortunate enough to have during my trip this summer, with some of the leaders of my race, influenced me considerably in making the decision. That trip was an education in itself to me and it has revealed to me the tremendous amount of work there is for each of us to do during our short stay on earth.
Letters to and from C.H. Rieber
Ralph Bunche at Harvard,
c. 1928
For spending money Bunche got a job in a secondhand bookstore, although more or less by accident. He had a letter from a UCLA professor to the store owner that he hoped would secure him a discount on purchases, but the owner assumed that Bunche was applying for a vacant position. The owner was extremely near-sighted and didn’t realize that Bunche was black; he later admitted that he might not have hired him if he had known his race, but he also admitted that that would have been wrong.
Two of Bunche’s housemates at Harvard, who became close friends, went on to distinguished careers themselves: William Hastie became the nation’s first black federal judge, and Robert Weaver, an economist, worked on the New Deal, then served in the Kennedy administration and as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Johnson administration.
Manuscript for "The Negro in Chicago
Politics," 1928
Written while he was still working on his master’s degree at Harvard, Bunche’s first published article appeared in the
National Municipal Review in the May 1928 issue. In a handwritten note on the back of the final page, Bunche wrote, "This is the ‘copy’ of my article as marked by the editor of the magazine & sent to the printer. Just a simple article -- mere exposition, but I had to go very careful at first & be sure of my ground before making more ‘weighty’ assertions. If I can find time I’ll get out another soon. This helped me pass away ‘spare’ moments last semester."
Bunche completed his master’s degree in political science, which Harvard called "government," in July 1928 and was offered a Thayer Fellowship to pursue his doctorate at Harvard. However, recruited to establish the political science department at Howard University, in Washington, D.C., he declined the fellowship.
