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Ralph Johnson Bunche 1903(04) 1971,United Nations Diplomat, Nobel Peace Prize winner 1950.

GGF was James H. Johnson a baptist preacher from Virginia,who married Eleanor Madden,the daughter of a house slave and an Irish catholic planter. James and Eleanor had eleven children, six sons and five daughters.Thomas Nelson Johnson their youngest son,was Ralph Bunche’sGF,a teacher who graduated from Shurtleff College,in Alton Illinois,in 1875.One of his students, was Lucy A.Taylor,from Sedalia Missouri,born March10,1855,the daughter of a house slave and an Irish planter,she married Thomas N.Johnson on Sept.8,1875,they had five children.

Lucy and Thomas Johnson’s second child,Olive was Ralph Bunche’s mother,she was born in Kansas,on April3,1882.In 1890 Thomas Johnson died,in 1900 Lucy Johnson sold everything, and moved the family to Detroit Michigan.Olive Johnson met and married Fred Bunche,a trained barber whose cliental were white, and whose family background was something of a mystery.Fred and Olive lived with Olive’s large family,with which he seemed ill at ease,Ralph Bunche was born in Detroit Michigan.

In 1907 Fred moved the family to Toledo Ohio,then to Knoxville Tennessee,then back to Toledo Ohio.Ralph’s sister was born in 1909 in T.Ohio.The family were eventually moved back to Detroit by Ralph’s GM Lucy Johnson.In 1915 his GM moved the family to Albuquerque N.Mexico,Fred Bunche,without money or a job followed them by riding box cars.In 1916,Fred Bunche who had not lived with his family since Ohio,left New Mexico to look for regular work and promised to send for them when he could support them. Olive Bunche died in 1917,Ralph was thirteen years old.Fred Bunche never returned.Lucy Johnson,their GM moved the family to Los Angeles California,sources reported that Fred Bunche had died,but in 1928,Fred had remarried a woman named Helen.

As an adult Ralph contacted his father’s second wife,Helen in an attempt to locate his father, but she did not know his wereabouts.

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