In 2019, writer Alice Walker returned to her hometown of Eatonton, Georgia, for a daylong homecoming for her 75th birthday. The day culminated with a conversation onstage between the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Color Purple” and her editor, Valerie Boyd.
When the event was over, Walker told the crowd it was time to put aside seriousness and have fun and to dance. The sound system blasted Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder, and several people jumped onstage to dance, including Laura Thomson McCarty, the president of Georgia Humanities.
“Laura was not the kind of person you could imagine dancing in public,” said her longtime colleague Kelly Caudle, who was there.
“She was a white woman in a longish paisley print skirt. She may have been the only white person up there, but she was dancing like nobody was watching. She was very proud of dancing with Alice Walker on that stage.”
In her 30 years at Georgia Humanities (formerly the Georgia Humanities Council), the last six as president, McCarty helped guide an organization that is the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her work included National History Day, the Governor’s Awards for the Arts and Humanities, the New Georgia Encyclopedia and distributing grants to recipients ranging from the Georgia Trail of Tears National Historic Trail site tour to the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival.
McCarty died Jan. 11, 2025, of a heart attack at her home in Decatur. She was 58.
Laura Thomson was born Feb. 26, 1966, in Kershaw County, South Carolina, to the Rev. Henry Mann Thomson Jr., a Methodist minister, and Mae Blackwell Thomson.
“She was very precocious,” recalled her sister Rebecca Blake. “If there was a group of adults around, you would find Laura there talking to the adults.”
As the eldest of three sisters, “she was very much the first born,” Blake said. “She was a leader, and she was going to make sure things went the way she thought they should go. It’s not surprising she ended up in the roles in her career that she did.”
McCarty earned her bachelor’s degree in comparative literature at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in 1988, followed by a master’s in the same discipline at the University of Georgia. She joined the staff of the Georgia Humanities Council in 1993.
She wore many hats in her 30 years there. “Laura was phenomenal at organization, at pulling off things,” said Glenn Eskew, professor of history at Georgia State University and a longtime colleague.
“But she was especially great at engaging with the students for National History Day,” he continued. The event is like a science fair for history, in which middle and high school students submit projects that are judged at the state and then national level.
“She was especially enthusiastic about helping young people find that spark of connection with history through National History Day,” said Caudle, vice president of Georgia Humanities. “That will be her legacy in the state.”
“She kept up with some of those kids afterward and tried to help anyone who was interested in pursuing a career in the humanities,” said her sister May Jane Thomson.
McCarty wrote several New Georgia Encyclopedia entries, including the one for Coretta Scott King. In 2009, she expanded that into the first complete biography of King, “Coretta Scott King: A Biography.”
McCarty was president of Georgia Humanities from 2018-2024. She also served as president of the Georgia Association of Historians and was on the boards of the Georgia Council for the Social Studies, the Georgia Association of Museums and the Georgia Center for the Book. She served in leadership roles in the United Methodist Church.
In 1999, she married graphic artist Phillip McCarty and they shared 21 years together near the corner of Fantasy Lane and Cinderella Way in a Decatur neighborhood called Storybook Estates.
“She and Phillip did a lot of things together. They were one of those couple that if you see one, you see the other,” said Katie Black Frost, a retired communications consultant who worked with McCarty at Georgia Humanities.
They vacationed on the Florida Panhandle and attended many live music events together.
“Georgia’s music and music history was very close to her heart,” said Caudle. “She was a big fan of the Macon music scene and going back to blues musicians, Southern rock, right up to the Atlanta Rhythm Section.”
Phillip McCarty died in 2021, and Laura McCarty retired in 2024.
McCarty is survived by sisters Rebecca Blake of Wilmington, North Carolina, and Mary Jane Thomson of Charleston, South Carolina, and nieces and nephews.
A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025, at North Decatur United Methodist Church, 1523 Church St. in Decatur.
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