Rauh was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of a German Jewish immigrant shirt manufacturer. He did not follow in his father's footsteps, however, shirking textiles for Harvard University. There, he played center for the Ivy League school's basketball team. He graduated magna cum laude with a degree in economics in 1932, continuing his education at Harvard Law School, where he finished first of his class.
Career
After clerking at the Supreme Court with Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo, Rauh eventually was commissioned into the Army at the rank of lieutenant in 1942, working as a lend-lease expert in the midst of World War II. He served in civil affairs in the Pacific. He ultimately reached the rank of lieutenant colonel. He returned to Washington after the war and worked in private practice, focusing his efforts on fighting for civil liberties. He was general counsel for labor leader Walter Reuther and the United Auto Workers, handling much of the UAW's civil liberties policy.
Civil rights
Rauh is best known for his championing of various civil rights causes. In 1947, he helped found Americans for Democratic Action, alongside Eleanor Roosevelt, Walter Reuther, and Hubert Humphrey, among others. Starting as a Democratic National Convention delegate in July 1948, he was a leader that year in writing up the civil rights plank for Humphrey. In the letter of support promoting his award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, its authors described the plank as "the foundation for all of the human rights and equal protection laws that have since been enacted." On September 12, 1948 at 8:30 PM, Elizabeth Bentley appeared again the first-ever television broadcast via WNBT of NBC's Meet the Press and was the first interviewed. Journalists included: Nelson Frank, Inez Robb, Cecil Brown, and Lawrence Spivak. Cecil Brown asked her three times whether she would accuse William Remington of being a communist outside of congressional protection, she finally did so. Joseph Rauh defended Remington before a Truman Loyalty Review Board. In 1959, Rauh successfully represented Quaker printer David H. Scull before the US Supreme Court in Scull v. Virginia ex rel. Committee on Law Reform & Racial Activities, which concerned aggressive and unclear questioning by the pro-segregation chairman of a Virginia legislative committee, which had led to a contempt citation the Supreme Court overturned. Rauh also lobbied Congress for the passage of many civil rights bills, having a hand in the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968. In addition, he fought against McCarthyism and was a long-time executive board member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Awards
In 1993 he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Bill Clinton.
