McGinty was born in
Bienville Parish in north Louisiana between
Ringgold and
Bienville to Alonzo Eugene McGinty and the former Maude Leshe. He was educated in local schools and attended
Baptist-affiliated
Louisiana College in
Pineville and received his Bachelor of Arts degree from
Northwestern State University in
Natchitoches. He procured the
Master of Arts degree from
Peabody College in
Nashville, Tennessee. He also studied at
Vanderbilt University in Nashville and the
University of Chicago in
Illinois before he received his Ph.D. from the
University of Texas at Austin. The
U.S. Congress declared war on Germany one day after McGinty's seventeenth birthday. He was hence part of the Student Army Training Corps during World War I. Early in his academic career, McGinty was the
principal of
elementary schools in
Red River,
Claiborne, and
Pointe Coupee parishes. He was also the principal of a secondary school in
De Soto Parish south of
Shreveport. Scholarships are also named for McGinty as is the Louisiana Tech publications division. In 1962, McGinty was elected by his colleagues as the fifth president of the reorganized
Louisiana Historical Association. In 1971, three years prior to the opening of
Louisiana Downs in
Bossier City, McGinty published "Horse-racing in North Louisiana, 1911–1914," in the journal,
North Louisiana History, a twice-annual publication of the North Louisiana Historical Association, an organization which he formerly headed. During his 50-year teaching career, McGinty wrote forty essays and articles, fifty book reviews, and five books. His
A History of Louisiana was used as a college textbook for two decades. Another popular work is
Louisiana Redeemed: The Overthrow of Carpetbag Rule, 1876–1880, a 1941 study of the
Reconstruction era, which ends with the triumph of the
Redeemers, the southern
Democrats who defeated the Radical
Republican administrations across the South. McGinty was listed in ''Who's Who in Education
, The Dictionary of International Scholars
, and Men of Achievement''. On July 15, 1932, McGinty married the former Zoé Heard (1902–1976) of Ruston. The couple had no children. McGinty was a brother-in-law of Charles Raymond Heard (1896–1963), a prominent wholesale
grocer in Ruston who served on the Louisiana State Board of Education prior to 1960, when he was unseated in the
Democratic primary election by later
U.S. Representative Joe Waggonner of
Louisiana's 4th congressional district. ==Works==