Joachim Prinz (May 10, 1902 – September 30, 1988) was a German-American rabbi who was an outspoken activist against Nazism in Germany in the 1930s and later became a leader in the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1960s.

He was invited by Rabbi Stephen Wise of the Free Synagogue in New York and a close adviser to President Franklin Roosevelt, to settle in America.

Prinz's early involvement in the Zionist movement made him a close ally and friend of the founding leaders of the State of Israel.

[6] Because of his experience in Germany, Prinz identified with the cause of the African-Americans in the United States, seeing parallels between their plight and that of German Jews under Hitler.

Upon his return to Germany, he wrote of his impressions for the German-Jewish literary magazine Der Morgen: The negroes in Harlem still remind us of the times of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

He joined the picket lines across America protesting racial prejudice from unequal employment to segregated schools, housing and all other areas of life.

Prinz met civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. at the American Jewish Congress's May 1958 convention.

That October, Prinz requested King's support to persuade President Dwight Eisenhower to convene a conference on integration at the White House.

[8] In early 1963, Prinz invited King to give a lecture at his synagogue attended by an overflow crowd, several months before the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

[2] During his tenure as president of the American Jewish Congress, Prinz sought to position the AJC as one of the country's most prominent civil rights organizations.

At the 1960 AJC Convention, Prinz called for the Jewish community to identify with and participate in the broader struggle for civil rights: (As Jews), we work for freedom and equality.

In his address, Prinz contended that, based on his experience as a rabbi in Nazi Germany after the rise of Hitler, in the face of discrimination, "the most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful and the most tragic problem is silence."