David Garrow
David Garrow | |
---|---|
Born | David Jeffries Garrow May 11, 1953 |
Education | Wesleyan University Duke University |
Occupation(s) | Historian, author |
Awards | Pulitzer Prize for Biography (1987) |
David Jeffries Garrow (born May 11, 1953) is an American author and historian.[1] He wrote the book Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1986), which won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Biography.[2][3] He also wrote Liberty and Sexuality (1994), a history of the legal struggles over abortion and reproductive rights in the U.S. prior to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama (2017), and other works.[4][5]
Professional historians and scholars in other fields have criticized Garrow's later work on Martin Luther King Jr. In 2019 Garrow authored an article for the magazine Standpoint in which he wrote he had seen a Federal Bureau of Investigation file with a handwritten note on it claiming King had witnessed, failed to prevent, and encouraged a sexual assault by another minister. Garrow said he found it credible. King specialists and COINTELPRO historians described it as deeply irresponsible and excessively credulous in accepting the claim by an organization given a remit to destroy King and his reputation.[6]
Life and career
Garrow was born in
Garrow writes frequently on the history of the
Garrow served as a senior adviser for
In 1987, Garrow was a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.[10]
In 2019, Garrow read
Many authors called Garrow's claim unreliable. Garrow's reliance on a handwritten note addended to a typed report is considered poor scholarship by several authorities. Peter Ling of the University of Nottingham pointed out that Garrow was excessively credulous, if not naive, in accepting the accuracy of FBI reports during a period when the FBI was undertaking a massive operation to attempt to discredit King as part of its COINTELPRO activities.[14] Garrow had earlier referred to Ling's work on King, widely considered authoritative, as "thoughtful, perceptive, and thoroughly well-informed".[15] Experts in 20th-century American history, including Jeanne Theoharis, Barbara Ransby of the University of Illinois Chicago, N. D. B. Connolly of Johns Hopkins University and Glenda Gilmore of Yale University have expressed reservations about Garrow's scholarship. Theoharis commented "Most scholars I know would penalize graduate students for doing this." It is not the first time the care and rigor of Garrow's work has been called into serious question.[16] The long-time civil rights activist Edith Lee-Payne suggested Garrow may have published his work in the area to obtain "personal attention" for himself.[14]
Garrow was interviewed for a 2020 documentary inspired by his work, MLK/FBI.[17][18]
Selected works
- Protest at Selma (Yale University Press, 1978)
- The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr. (Norton, 1981)
- Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (Morrow, 1986; HarperCollins paperback, 2004)[19]
- We Shall Overcome (as editor, three volumes of an 18-volume set, Carlson Pub., 1989)
- Liberty and Sexuality: The Right to Privacy and the Making of Roe v. Wade (Macmillan, 1994; updated paperback edition, University of California Press, 1998)
- Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama (2017)
- The Troubling Legacy of Martin Luther King (2019)[20][21]
References
- ISBN 9783110972139.
- ^ David Von Drehle (20 January 2019). "We honor Martin Luther King Jr. not for his victories but for his vision". The Washington Post. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
- ^ Pat Morrison (17 May 2017). "Let's take a moment to remember Barack Obama". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
- ^ "Conservatives are praising historians like David Garrow for demythologizing Obama". History News Network. 10 May 2017. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
- ^ David Greenberg (19 June 2017). "Why So Many Critics Hate the New Obama Biography". POLITICO Magazine. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
- ^ Brockell, Gillian (May 30, 2019). "'Irresponsible': Historians attack David Garrow's MLK allegations". The Washington Post.
- ISBN 9781573561112.
David Garrow 1953 bedford.
- ^ "Q&A with David Garrow, Part 1". C-SPAN. 12 May 2017. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
- ^ Kris Maher (6 November 2018). "Pittsburgh Heads to the Polls With Synagogue Shooting Still Resonating". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 1 April 2019.
- ^ Democratic Left, vol. 6 no. 1 (January 1987), page 17.
- Garrow, David J. (30 May 2019). "The troubling legacy of Martin Luther King". Standpoint. Archived from the originalon 1 June 2019. Retrieved 2 June 2019.
- ^ Hamill, Sean D. "Former Pitt professor reassessing view of MLK after he uncovers new FBI documents". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 2 June 2019.
- ^ Murch, Donna (June 8, 2019). "A historian's claims about Martin Luther King are shocking – and irresponsible". The Guardian. London.
- ^ a b Stubley, Peter; Baynes, Chris (May 28, 2019). "Martin Luther King Jr 'watched and laughed' as woman was raped, secret FBI recordings allege". The Independent. London.
- ^ "Martin Luther King, Jr". Routledge. Retrieved November 20, 2021.
- ^ Murch, Donna (June 8, 2019). "A historian's claims about Martin Luther King are shocking – and irresponsible". The Guardian. London.
- ^ "MLK/FBI". Toronto International Film Festival. Retrieved September 18, 2023.
- ^ "Documentary explores how FBI surveillance impacted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr". Spectrum News 1. Retrieved September 18, 2023.
- ^ books.google.com
- ^ "The troubling legacy of Martin Luther King | David J. Garrow | Standpoint". Archived from the original on 2019-05-30.
- ^ https://www.davidgarrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/DJGStandpoint2019.pdf [bare URL PDF]
External links
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- Dave Garrow at IMDb
- David Garrow at the University of Pittsburgh
- Interview with David Garrow by Stephen McKiernan, Binghamton University Libraries Center for the Study of the 1960s, November 20, 2010