David Jeffries Garrow is an American author and historian. Born on May 11, 1953, he is widely recognized for his work on civil rights and political history. His notable book, Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1986), won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. Garrow has also authored Liberty and Sexuality (1994), which explores the legal battles over abortion and reproductive rights in the U.S. before the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, and Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama (2017).

While Garrow's early work received significant acclaim, some of his later investigations, particularly regarding Martin Luther King Jr., have faced criticism from professional historians. In 2019, he wrote an article for Standpoint magazine citing an FBI file that claimed King had witnessed a sexual assault by another minister. Garrow found the file credible, though specialists criticized him for accepting the FBI's claims without enough scrutiny.

David J. Garrow is a Professor of Law & History and Distinguished Faculty Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.