"[1] Cotter was born at the start of the American Civil War, and was raised in poverty with no formal education until the age of 22.

Cotter worked in manual labor and various odd jobs until the age of 22, where he joined the first and newly created Louisville night school for black students.

[5] According to Metzger (1989): "There is little specific information about either the extent of Cotter's education—it seems certain that he never attended college or completed a degree-granting program—or his professional life as an educator.

Although some writers had felt that Cotter must have attended college, his love of writing and of literature might just have well stemmed from the many books that his mother had read to him as a child.

Cotter made the best of teaching children in a small one-roomed school house with dirt flooring and no heating.

[3] Along with his 53-year career as an educator, Cotter worked for racial advancement with many local and national organizations, including Louisville Colored Orphans Home Society, Kentucky Educational Association, Author's League, Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, and NAACP.

Among these works are 4 volumes of poetry: A Rhyming (1895); Links of Friendship (1898); A White Song and a Black One (1909); and Collected Poems (1938).

[2] According to William S. Ward, "…[Cotter's] writings have never won him high recognition, but he has fared rather well at the hands of black historians.