Carole Elfreda Henderson was born August 29, 1942 in Atlanta, Georgia as the first child and first daughter to Freddye and Jake Sr. Henderson.

When she was ten years old, her parents sent her to live with her mother’s family in Los Angeles and San Francisco, California for a year to broaden her horizons. She attended Spelman Nursery School, Atlanta University Laboratory Elementary School-Oglethorpe, and Henry McNeal Turner High School in Atlanta. In 10th grade, she entered Saint Mary’s-in-the Mountains in Littleton, New Hampshire, the same school her siblings would attend in the future.

She recieved her Master's degree from Howard University in French and African studies in 1968, and while living in California, she was an editor for Science Research Associates, an IBM subsidiary in Palo Alto, and edited and selected material for textbooks. She also taught West African literature at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1970 she attended Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts to earn her Ph.D. in anthropology.

Tyson worked under Leon Damas at Howard University in Washington, D.C. from 1976 to 1978. In 1979, she joined the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), where she would work for the next twenty years assisting the country in becoming independent from South Africa. Her first four years there were spent in Senegal, where her mission was to assist in the development of economic infrastructure, education, healthcare and food assistance.

In 1998 she became Vice President of International Affairs for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, doing research on the HIV/AIDS pandemic in South Africa. Tyson later founded Henderson’s Global Voices, which brings international speakers to American audiences. 

Carole died September 15, 2025. She is survived by her children, John and Iman Tyson.