Ralph Johnson Bunche (/bʌntʃ/; August 7, 1904 – December 9, 1971) was an American political scientist, diplomat, and leading actor in the mid-20th-century decolonization process and US civil rights movement, who received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his late 1940s mediation in Israel. Among black Nobel laureates he is the first African American and first person of African descent to be awarded a Nobel Prize. He was involved in the formation and early administration of the United Nations, and played a major role in both the decolonization process and numerous UN peacekeeping operations.