Ralph J. Bunche House /

Ralph J. Bunche House, also known as the Ralph Bunche Peace & Heritage Center, was the Victorian-Bungalow style boyhood home of Nobel Peace Prize winner Ralph Bunche located in South Los Angeles. It was declared a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument-HCM #159 by the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission in 1976, and listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. Bunche won the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in negotiating and drafting the 1949 Armistice Agreements that ended the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. He was the first person of color from any country to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Bunche was born in Detroit, Michigan and later lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but moved to Los Angeles to live with his maternal grandmother when his mother died in 1917. Bunche and his sister, Grace, were raised at the house on 40th Place by their grandmother, Lucy Taylor Johnson, their two aunts (Nelle and Ethel), and their uncle Thomas Johnson. While living in Los Angeles, Bunche became the valedictorian at both Jefferson High School, one-half block away, and UCLA, then located at Vermont Avenue and Melrose. Bunche was also a star basketball player while at UCLA. Bunche's