Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2021/Fall/Section018/Elizabeth Cotton

Biography

Early Life

Elizabeth Cotton was born in the 1890s in Carrboro, North Carolina. When Elizabeth was young, Carrboro was called “West Of” because it was west of Chapel Hill. Her father passed away when Elizabeth was young. Elizabeth had to help her mother with work to cover her father’s medical expenses. Elizabeth was young but she taught herself how to play her brother’s banjo upside down because she was left-handed. When Elizabeth got around age eleven, she would spend time around the train depot in her hometown. She knew people that worked there like the firefighters, brakemen, and the conductors. In the daytime, she would sing songs with her brothers while they did chores. Elizabeth quit school and started earning money to buy a guitar. She bought her first guitar at 12 which was a Stella guitar, made by the Oscar Schmidt Company for $3.75.

At fourteen, Elizabeth was writing her own songs and she could almost play anything she heard. She stopped playing certain songs because the deacons in her local church said they were “worldly” and did not serve God.

Elizabeth had her first child in 1911 so she began to have less time for music. Elizabeth moved between Carrboro, New York, and Washington, DC because her husband Frank Cotton owned a chauffeur business and a garage in New York. Elizabeth Worked at a furniture store while her daughter Lillie was in school in Yonkers. After Lillie grew older and got married, Elizabeth divorced frank in the 1940s. She then moved to Washington, DC to stay with her daughter Lillie and help take care of her kids. Elizabeth also worked in the doll department on the fifth floor of Lansburgh’s Department Store.

Musical Career

One day when Elizabeth was working at Lansburgh’s Department Store, she found a lost child. She watched the girl until her mother could be found. The mother of the child told her that she was looking for a babysitter and a housekeeper. She gave Elizabeth a telephone number and asked her if she decided to stop working at the store and wanted to take the offer, to call. Elizabeth decided to call, and she began working for the family.

The family she worked for was known as the Seegars. The mother who hired her was Ruth Crawford Seegar, a composer and music teacher. Her husband was Charles Seegar, an ethnomusicologist who is an expert on the social and cultural aspects of music. One day Elizabeth picked up a guitar laying around and started playing. The Seegars noticed her playing and they became intrigued by her technique of playing the guitar along with the smooth sound it produced. After that, the son Mike Seegar recorded Elizabeth at her home. She recorded “Freight Train” along with many other songs at 62 years old. Folkways Records produced the recordings as an album titled Folksongs and Instrumentals with Guitar.

Elizabeth had started a new career at an old age with her stage name being Libba Cotton. She had her first concert in 1960 at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. She was an extremely popular artist during the revival of folk music in the 1960s. She performed with many notable names like New Lost city Ramblers, Mississippi John Hurt, Muddy Waters and more. She also performed at many notable places like the Smithsonian festival, the Philadelphia Folk festival and Carnegie Hall. In her concert she would tell stories and have the crowd sing along with her. She was a great performer because of how she made the audience feel like family members of hers sitting on a porch in Carrboro. She would also talk to the audience and tell them about her past and things she used to do. Trivial things like that made her entertaining and loving. In her performances she played worldly songs but also gospel songs because she believed it was important that people formed a relationship with God and do right.

Elizabeth’s last concert was in February 1987 at City College in Harlem. It was a tribute concert to her organized by folk legend Odetta and Elizabeth’s peers. Elizabeth would pass away that summer on June 29, 1987, at Crouse-Irving Hospital in Syracuse, New York. She was picked as one of 75 influential African-American women to be included in the documentary I dream a World in 1989. Her banjo and guitar are in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution. Elizabeth has an amazing tribute in her hometown which is the Libba Cotton Bikeway that goes from Carrboro to Chapel Hill along the railroad tracks.

Social Events

Jim Crow Laws

In the late 1800s Jim Crow laws arose. The laws were regulations that mandated the division of races in every area of a person’s life in the southern population of the US. Places and things like water fountains, transportation, restaurants, theaters, restrooms, and workplaces were divided by color. Things were labeled either “Whites Only” or “Colored". These laws expressed racial discrimination and racial inequality. Any person that didn’t identify as white was subject to shopping, eating, and travelling in some areas that were substandard.

Civil Rights Movement

From the 1950s through the 1960s, African-Americans along with allies that wanted the same fought to end racial discrimination, racial inequality, and segregation. There was discrimination in employment and barriers for African-Americans to vote. Many notable people like Martin Luther king Jr., Malcom X, Rosa Parks and more participated in this social movement. African-Americans along with their allies participated in different forms of non-violent protest. Some constructed non-violent marches, some sat in “White Only” diners, and some did not use public transportation. There were some violent protest and riots that occurred in some cities across the nation that resulted in President Kennedy sending in federal troops. In the end, the Civil Rights movement resulted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited segregation of race, religion, or national origin at all public places. Minorities could no longer be rejected service based on their race. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, which forbid literacy tests and other discriminatory voting methods, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which prohibited discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of property followed. The fight to end racism did not end but some equality was gained, and legal segregation was brough to an end.