Bogle grew up in a suburb of Philadelphia and graduated from Lincoln University in 1966. As a child, he spent a lot of time watching television and going to the movies. He wondered why there were very few African-American characters. He also wondered what happened to the Black characters when they went off-screen. In a 2005 interview, Bogle recalled:
In the movie Gone with the Wind, how did Hattie McDaniel live...in the big house or the slaves' quarters? What did she think about the civil war? These were all questions I wanted answers to.