Her mother, Wanda Louise Thompson, raised Tori and her two sisters with values she learned through exposure to the Black power movement during her own childhood.
[1] At age 14, one year after the death of her mother, Sampson and her twin sister were sent to a boarding school in Mississippi.
[1] Sampson attended Ball State University, graduating with a bachelor's degree in sociology.
[2] Sampson's debut play, If Pretty Hurts, Ugly Must Be a Muhfucka, premiered in 2019 at Playwrights Horizons in New York City.
[2] Her play This Land Was Made debuted at the Vineyard Theater in New York City that year.