an apology and invitation of membership. The official who had rebuffed them resigned. Bunche refused the offer, saying it was not based on racial equality and was an exception based only on his personal prestige. During his UN career, Bunche turned down appointments from Presidents Harry Truman and John Kennedy, because of the Jim Crow laws still in effect in Washington, D.C. Historian John Hope Franklin credits him with "creating a new category of leadership among African-Americans" due to his unique ability "to take the power and prestige he accumulated...to address the problems of his community." Marriage and family While teaching at Howard University in 1928, Bunche met Ruth Harris, who was a first-grade teacher in Washington, D.C. They later started seeing each other and married June 23, 1930. The couple had three children: Joan Harris Bunche (1931–2015), Jane Johnson Bunche (1933–1966), and Ralph J. Bunche, Jr. (1943–2016). His grandson, Ralph J. Bunche III, is the General Secretary of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, an international membership organization established to facilitate the voices of unrepresented and marginalised nations and peoples worldwide. On October 9, 1966, their daughter Jane Bunche Pierce fell or jumped from the roof of her apartment building in Riverdale, Bronx; her death was believed to be suicide. She left no note. She and her husband Burton Pierce, a Cornell alumnus and labor relations executive, had three children. Their apartment was on the first floor of the building. Death Bunche resigned from his position at the UN due to ill health, but this was not announced, as Secretary-General U Thant hoped he would be able to return soon. His health did not improve, and Bunche died December 9, 1971, from complications of heart disease, kidney disease, and diabetes. He was 67. He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York City. Honors Awards In 1949, he was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP. In 1950, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace, for his work in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict in Palestine In 1951, Bunche was awarded the Silver Buffalo Award by the Boy Scouts of America for his work in scouting and positive impact for the world In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante included Ralph Bunche on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans. In 2004, Ralph Bunche was posthumously honored with the William J. Donovan Award from the OSS Society. A