"...where it all began for me": Los Angeles

In 1918, the year after Ralph Bunche and his family arrived in Los Angeles, the city's total population stood at 500,000 (the population reported in the 2000 U.S. Census was nearly 3.7 million). The home they found on 37th Place (now 40th Place) near Central Avenue was then located in a white, middle-class neighborhood; Bunche's aunt Nelle would continue to live there until her death in 1975.

Thirtieth Street Intermediate School, c. 1919; Bunche is in the top row, far left

Bunche attended the nearby Thirtieth Street Intermediate School (now John Adams Middle School). He was enrolled in vocational classes, as blacks almost always were at that time, since they were not expected to go to college. When Nana found out, she insisted that the principal enroll him in classes that would prepare him for college.

Thomas Jefferson High School, January 11, 1922 (?); Bunche is in the second row, far right

Bunche then went on to high school at Thomas Jefferson High School. A letter he wrote years later to Cecilia Irvine, one of his high-school teachers, upon her retirement indicates the value he placed on his early education as well as the thoughtfulness that friends and acquaintances noted about him throughout his life. In turn, her reply gives a glimpse of him as a young man.

Letters to and from Cecilia Irvine

Although he was the only black student in his class, Bunche did not recall any overt racism, with one major exception:

. . . in my senior year in high school, my race and not my grades had kept me out of the city-wide high school honour society . . . . The names of prospective honourees were read off at a meeting of the Senior Class . . . . Since my grades were the highest in the class, I had expected to be included. When my name was omitted, I instinctively assumed it was because of my race, and so did some of my classmates and at least one of my teachers, who immediately expressed to me their indignation that my colour should have been held against me. I was humiliated and deeply wounded, and on angry impulse decided to leave school, abandon graduation and never return. But after a while I . . . subdued my emotions, decided that I could get along without the honour society, an finally found myself delivering the commencement address at graduation. I assumed that the latter was a "consolation prize" for me.

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