His family converted to Catholicism after St Louis Archbishop Joseph Ritter led desegregation efforts in the region.
[3] Hampton attended medical school for a term at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, before dropping out.
The marches changed Hampton's life, as he recognized the power of media and television and began to conceptualize a film documenting the Civil Rights Movement.
Blackside also produced public service announcements and film-based training materials for government and commercial clients.
[4] In 1977, the Harvard School of Design granted Hampton a Loeb Fellowship to study constitutional limitations and the nature of media and government information programs.
Hampton made a commitment to social justice with later productions, including his 1987 magnum opus Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years (1954–1965).