However, the University of Alabama, under its president George H. Denny, allowed young Elliott to work at a variety of jobs about campus to pay his educational expenses.

In 1933, he received his undergraduate degree, and he subsequently enrolled at the University of Alabama School of Law, also located in Tuscaloosa.

With the support of the growing number of out-of-state students and women, Elliott became the first person to defeat "the Machine", a select coalition of fraternities and sororities that to this day dominates campus politics at the university.

Elliott then began his law practice in Russellville near his hometown but soon moved to the community that he would call home for the remainder of his life: Jasper in Walker County, Alabama.

As an attorney in Jasper, Elliott spent most of his time representing coal miners and their families, foreshadowing his long political career of fighting for Alabama's poorest, most disadvantaged people.

His "Farm Boy to Congress" persona proved popular among the working class in his district, and in 1948, he unseated Representative Carter Manasco, to the surprise of many political observers.

Upon winning the election, Elliott and his wife purchased a residence in the nation's capital and spent the next sixteen years traveling back and forth between Washington, D.C., and Jasper.

In the 1964 congressional general election, the Democrat George C. Hawkins, the president pro tempore of the Alabama State Senate, was defeated by the Republican James D. Martin, an oil products distributor from Gadsden.

[citation needed] After Elliott's defeat, he slipped into political obscurity, having spent his congressional pension on the failed gubernatorial bid.

In 1990, Elliott received new recognition of his achievements when he became the first recipient of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award; the second in 1991 was U.S. Representative Charles Weltner, another civil rights advocate from Georgia.

His autobiography, The Cost of Courage: The Journey of An American Congressman, written with journalist Michael D'Orso and published in 1992, was reprinted by the University of Alabama Press.