He obtained his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1982 and taught at Tulane University in New Orleans. During that time, he worked as a political pollster on a number of campaigns and began making films. His first documentary, Hands That Picked Cotton (1985), about black grassroots politics in the Mississippi delta, was based on his Ph.D. dissertation, Black Politics in the New South. His second film, Among Brothers: Black Politics in New Orleans (1987), focused a campaign for mayor between two African-American candidates. Both films were aired nationally on PBS and led to Henry Hampton, the Executive Producer of Blackside's Eyes on the Prize series, to hire him as a director for Eyes II (1990). His primary film there, about Dr. Martin Luther King's last year, The Promised Land 1967-68, was co-produced by Jackie Shearer.