Bette Yarbrough Cox is a graduate of UCLA, and later received her Master's Degree in Music Education at California State University. During her undergraduate years at UCLA, she was initiated into the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. Post Graduate studies were at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and at the USC School of Music, where she was inducted into the Pi Lambda Theta Sorority, an honorary educational society. Ms. Cox matriculated on a Graduate Advancement Doctoral fellowship at UCLA during 1971-72. During this period, some of her research took her to Africa and later to seminars at Indiana University and Virginia State College under the sponsorship of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Ms. Cox was a music teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District for 31 years and was a training teacher for the USC School of Music. As a member of the Music Educators National Conference, she served on the Graduate Teacher Education Commission and was also appointed to the Hall of Fame Committee. She is the Western division board member of the National Association for the Study and Performance of African American Music (NASPAAM), an affiliate of MENC. She is also on the Board of Directors of the Young Musicians Foundation and has served on the National Endowment for the Arts, Music Grants and Policy Division. She is also a member of the League of Allied Arts.
Under her leadership, the BEEM (Black Experience expressed through Music) Foundation for the Advancement of Music has given over $70,000 in scholarships to talented young music students and also has given $50,000 worth of music instruments to the LAUSD schools. Ms. Cox was the Executive Producer of the BEEM/KCET production of "Blind Tom: The Story of Thomas Bethune," the award-winning PBS television special. She was chief curator and fundraiser for the history-making exhibition, The Musical Renaissance of Black Los Angeles, in 1995. She conceived and developed an accompanying Symposium, featuring nationally-known speakers and scholars along with an outstanding concert series.
In 1982, Mayor Tom Bradley appointed Ms. Cox Commissioner of Cultural Affairs for the city of Los Angeles. For ten years, she produced Black History Month programs for multi-ethnic audiences at the TransAmerica auditorium for the Commission. These programs featured early 20th century music by Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake, later music of other Afro American musicians from the mid century, as well as that of William Grant Stil, including both classical and jazz. Professional musicians included opera singers of note, as well as jazz musicians in concert.
The recipient of a number of honors and awards in her field locally and nationally, she has
lectured at several colleges and universities and has been a speaker on television. Ms. Cox
has written for a number of publications, including the Black Music Research Bulletin, the
Music Educators Journal and the Music Educators News Magazine, as well as curriculum guides
for the Los Angeles Unified School District. Central Avenue: Its Rise and Fall (Including
the Musical Renaissance of Black Los Angeles) is her first book. She also co-wrote with
Lorenz Graham, That Welcome Day, a follow-up of the production, "Blind Tom." Ms. Cox is one
of the authors of Seeking El Dorado. Her portion is the history of African American music in
Los Angeles.
She was the only music teacher selected for the first magnet school in Los Angeles Unified School District and later became music advisor for LAUSD, producing the first in-service series of programs for teachers in the LAUSD on African American music, which was televised on Channel 58.