Derrick Lampkins believes in lifelong learning and was educated across Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia. In 2008, he took a Film Production course at the University of South Alabama, where he co-produced a documentary short on African American landowners in the Gulf Coast who lost their land through force or illegal means. This research led him to the story of Mr. Isaac Simmons, a landowner in Liberty, Mississippi, who was murdered in 1944 for his land.