Ralph was already an activist when he was in his Chicago grade school... He studied at Columbia under the legendary C. Wright Mills and worked at a settlement house in New York while taking his degree. He moved back to Chicago to work in another Settlement House. His own house became the headquarters for the Congress on Racial Equality and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and from those associations, participated in the Freedom Rides in the South. Moving to Washington, D.C., he was involved in the planning committee of the March on Washington and lobbied for passage of historic Civil Rights Act in l964. He came to Los Angeles to take over the Greater Los Angeles Community Action Agency under Mayor Tom Bradley. He studied for and passed the Bar Exam and became a human rights lawyer. Currently, he teaches Social Work at USC.