David Garrow

David Garrow served as Professor of Law and History and Distinguished Faculty Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law from 2011 until 2017. A prominent historian in the field of History, he earned his B.A. magna cum laude from Wesleyan University in 1975 and his Ph.D. from Duke University in 1981. His extensive academic career includes positions as instructor of History at Duke University (1978-1979), assistant professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1980-1984), associate and full professor of History at the City College of New York and the CUNY Graduate Center (1984-1991), Visiting Distinguished Professor of History at The Cooper Union (1992-1993), James Pinckney Harrison Visiting Professor of History at the College of William and Mary (1994-1995), Distinguished Historian in Residence at American University (1995-1996), and Presidential Distinguished Professor at Emory University School of Law (1997-2005). Prior to Pittsburgh, he was Senior Research Fellow at Homerton College, University of Cambridge.

Garrow's research specializations include the history of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, FBI surveillance of King, the Selma civil rights protests, the American reproductive rights struggle and the making of Roe v. Wade, Supreme Court history and clerks, civil rights issues, abortion, Brown v. Board of Education, FBI and intelligence agencies, gay marriage and equality, U.S. presidential history, and contemporary U.S. politics. Key publications feature Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1986), which won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award; Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (1978); The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.: From 'Solo' to Memphis (1981); Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v. Wade (1994, updated 1998); and Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama (2017). He edited The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson (1987), co-edited The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader (1987, 1991) and The Forgotten Memoir of John Knox: A Year in the Life of a Supreme Court Clerk in FDR’s Washington (2002), and served as senior advisor for the PBS series Eyes on the Prize and editorial advisor for the Library of America’s Reporting Civil Rights (2003). Garrow's articles have appeared in the Yale Law Journal, University of Chicago Law Review, Journal of American History, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. He has featured in documentaries such as the Emmy-nominated Who Killed Malcolm X? (2020) and Oscar-shortlisted MLK/FBI (2021).