The Georgia Association of Historians started in 1973 with a simple goal: bringing together historians to strengthen our profession and share ideas. The purpose of the organization, according to our Constitution, is “to strengthen the historical profession and to enhance the professional lives of historians in Georgia."
Our members study everything from American and European history to the Middle East, Latin America, and China, making us a true hub for historical research that goes far beyond state lines. We connect through annual meetings and our peer-reviewed journal, while also helping new historians find their footing in the field.
Whether you're teaching history, working in public history, or conducting research, the GAH offers a welcoming community where historians can grow, collaborate, and push the boundaries of historical understanding.
Our members study everything from American and European history to the Middle East, Latin America, and China, making us a true hub for historical research that goes far beyond state lines. We connect through annual meetings and our peer-reviewed journal, while also helping new historians find their footing in the field.
Whether you're teaching history, working in public history, or conducting research, the GAH offers a welcoming community where historians can grow, collaborate, and push the boundaries of historical understanding.
In Memory of Laura McCarty
The family of Laura Thomson McCarty has announced it will hold a memorial service at 10 am on Saturday, February 15, 2025, North Decatur United Methodist Church, 1523 Church Street, Decatur, GA, 30030. McCarty died from a massive heart attack last month.
A former president of the Georgia Association of Historians, Laura Thomson McCarty’s thirty-year career at the Georgia Humanities Council made her an ambassador of the humanities throughout the state. Members will recall Laura as an eternally optimistic and cheerful person who always found something positive to say while being the hardest working organizer who knew literally everyone engaged in the liberal arts in Georgia.
Professional historians in Georgia crossed McCarty’s path at some point in their careers either at a conference, program, or exhibit sponsored by Georgia Humanities or as a judge at the regional and statewide National History Day competitions which she oversaw as state coordinator for decades.
Although a native of South Carolina, Laura descended from generations of leaders in the old Methodist Episcopal Church, South, with her grandparents buried in the city cemetery at Oxford College outside Covington, Georgia. Like the old itinerate circuit riders, her father, the Reverend Henry Mann Thomson, Jr. served several Methodist churches as pastor, moving the family to different congregations with one stint being just across the Savannah River from Augusta in Graniteville, the old mill town founded by southern industrialist William Gregg, a post Laura remembered with fondness.
Pursuing the liberal arts, Laura matriculated at the Methodist Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where her father and sisters also attended. She was graduated in 1988 and remained a devoted fan of the Terriers as well as other college athletic teams. Upon completion of her bachelor’s degree, she attended graduate school at the University of Georgia where she began in the doctoral program of the Department of English studying comparative literature and in particular Italian Futurism. Briefly she taught in the University system.
In 1993, the president of the Georgia Humanities Council, Dr. Ron Benson, hired Laura Thomson as his assistant and she began her decades of employment in downtown Atlanta’s Hurt Building. She quickly became a central figure in the office managing many of the Council’s activities. Old timers in the GAH will remember with nostalgia the Governor’s Awards in the Humanities, an annual celebration that packed the Georgia Depot next to the Capitol with scholars of many stripes, directors of numerous heritage groups, and others engaged in the state’s many humanities- oriented organizations in a swirl of activities that McCarty deftly managed.
Throughout her career, Laura Thomson McCarty remained an active member of the Kiwanis Club of Atlanta. She joined numerous academic organizations including the Southern Historical Association while serving on the boards of the Georgia Council for the Social Studies, the Georgia Association of Museums and Galleries, the Georgia Center for the Book, and other professional groups.
When Dr. Jamil Zainaldin became the President of the GHC he named McCarty his executive vice president. Under Zainaldin, the Council pioneered the state online encyclopedia with its New Georgia Encyclopedia edited by Dr. John C. Inscoe. Laura became a frequent contributor of entries. When Zainaldin retired, she assumed the presidency of the renamed Georgia Humanities in 2018 and held the position until her own retirement February 15, 2024.
As president, McCarty calmly confronted the crises that came her way beginning with COVID and the need to shift the office to remote work while adjusting the numerous humanities grants to accommodate rescheduling. She oversaw the distribution of $1.67 million in federal funding to organizations through SHARP and CARES relief and safely managed the return of workers to the office.
In addition to her organizational skills running the statewide affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Laura proved herself to be an accomplished scholar. What began as the 2006 entry for the NGE became the first complete biography of Coretta Scott King. Published in the prestigious Greenwood Biographies series of Greenwood Press in 2009, McCarty’s Coretta Scott King: A Biography, provided the first complete picture of the human rights activist and widow of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., not just of her life during the civil rights movement but also her decades of work building the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, her securing passage of the legislation that made the King National Holiday, her support for sanctions against South Africa and on behalf of women internationally, her advocacy for gay rights, and her death in 2006. A seminal work, the biography remains the standard academic account of Coretta Scott King’s life.
In 1999, Laura married her soulmate Phillip McCarty, a talented design and graphics technology expert and Auburn University graduate from Dothan, Alabama, who had connections with the Atlanta Rhythm Section. The two loved attending concerts of southern rock bands and other music events. They lived a “happily ever after” life in Decatur in a house on Cinderella Way on the corner with Fantasy Lane in Storybook Estates. While they enjoyed travel, especially to Hawai’i, their special place remained the Florida panhandle, although Phillip often accompanied Laura to National Humanities meetings around the country, sallying forth with his uncanny resemblance to Founding Father Ben Franklin.
When Phillip died from cancer in September 2021, Laura dealt with her grief by taking on more work but in time experienced her own health issues. In 2023 she took a leave of absence from Georgia Humanities, briefly returning before retiring in 2024.
Reflecting on her career, Laura said, “The joy of working in the humanities is the opportunity to learn something new every day. I look back on my time at Georgia Humanities with deep gratitude. It’s been a remarkable journey, connecting with people and collaborating with our dedicated board members, elected officials, community leaders, and many others who share a passion for the humanities.”
Laura is survived by her sisters, Rebecca Blake and Mary Jane Thomson and other Thomsons as well as numerous McCarty in-laws, nieces and nephews, and other family members. The family has asked that in lieu of flowers, memorials might be made to the Georgia Humanities Council, the North Decatur United Methodist Church, or some other suitable nonprofit organization.
Glenn T. Eskew
Georgia State University