Donald Grady Davidson (August 8, 1893 – April 25, 1968) was an American poet, essayist, social and literary critic, and author.

Davidson received a classical education at Branham and Hughes Military Academy, a preparatory school in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

He enjoyed, for a time, a national reputation as a poet, in part due to the inclusion of his dramatic monologue, "Lee in the Mountains",[2] in early editions of the influential college literature textbook Understanding Poetry.

[4]: 227 Perhaps most widely read of his writings today is Davidson's two-volume history The Tennessee (1946 and 1948), in the Rivers of America series.

The second volume is notable for its critique of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and the impact of its dam-building and eminent domain land seizure on local society.

Although originally a supporter of the New Deal, he was suspicious that the TVA was a plot of northern business interests to exploit and dominate the South.

In an essay defending segregation in The Sewanee Review, described by historian Paul V. Murphy as his major work on the topic, he wrote: "The white South denies the Negro equal participation in society, not only because it does not consider him entitled to equality, but because it is certain that social mingling would lead to biological mingling, which it is determined to prevent, both for any given contemporary generation and for its posterity.

"[7]: 106–107 Davidson supported the 1948 presidential candidacy of Strom Thurmond, who was running as a Dixiecrat in opposition to President Harry Truman's civil rights proposals.

[7]: 202  Davidson warned that if black students attended, "The capital city of Tennessee would become an uneasy island of integration surrounded by a tumultuous ocean of protest and discontent.