This house was the residence of Dr. Ralph Bunche, the distinguished African American political scientist, diplomat, and scholar, from 1941 to 1947. Bunche is chiefly remembered for his mediation in the Arab–Israeli conflict in Palestine in the 1940s, work for which he was recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950. He was the first African American to be so honored. Key in the early development of the United Nations, including in creating and adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and a member of the first American delegation to the UN General Assembly in 1946, Bunche was honored for his years of peacekeeping work with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded to him by John F. Kennedy, in 1963. From 1928 to 1950, Bunche chaired the Department of Political Science at Howard University. He was also an active supporter of the Civil Rights Movement, participating in both the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery.
In addition to honoring Bunche's historical contributions, this house is also notable for its association with Hilyard R. Robinson, the noted African American architect who designed the house in the International Style.
DC Inventory: April 29, 1975
National Register: September 30, 1993
]]>Named for John Mercer Langston (1829-1897), the Langston Terrace Dwellings was the first of eight housing projects designed by Hilyard R. Robinson (1899-1986), a noted Black Bauhaus-trained architect and pioneer in government housing for the poor. The International-style garden apartment buildings around the central commons made up the first federally-sponsored public housing complex in DC, a prime example of the early New Deal’s Public Works Administration (PWA) housing projects that were built between 1933 and 1937. A prominent feature of the apartments is the terracotta frieze which adorns the arcade entrance, entitled “The Progress of the Negro Race.” The frieze portrays Black labor and migration from rural fields to urban industrialization. The first vignette shows downcast figures against leafy crops. Further along in the sequence are healthy and proud characters holding tools and books. An industrial smokestack and a schoolhouse loom in the background. Finally, at the end of the work is a three-dimensional mother with two small children at her feet. Perched on a shelf, the madonna appears to reinforce the themes of the PWA housing program that placed much emphasis on family unity and progress. DC Inventory: September 16, 1987National Register: November 12, 1987
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