241. Leo Louis II on Hip Hop and Finding Inner Peace as a Community Advocate

2025-09-24

My guest today is Leo Louis II. Louis has been a community advocate in a multitude of roles, including gang intervention, urban farming and entrepreneurship for over a decade. Louis began his career in advocacy while a sophomore at North Omaha High School, where he drafted a 10 point email addressing issues relating to gang violence and CC’d every person in the school, which led to community-centered gang intervention programming that is still active.He has also worked with the Malcolm X Fou...

My guest today is Leo Louis II. Louis has been a community advocate in a multitude of roles, including gang intervention, urban farming and entrepreneurship for over a decade.

Louis began his career in advocacy while a sophomore at North Omaha High School, where he drafted a 10 point email addressing issues relating to gang violence and CC’d every person in the school, which led to community-centered gang intervention programming that is still active.

He has also worked with the Malcolm X Foundation where he helped create the Shabazz Community Garden before serving as Board President of the organization from 2019 to 2024.

He also stars in a new film called My Omaha, a documentary highlighting social movements during the social and political unrest in Omaha in 2020. My Omaha, directed by Nick Beaulieu (Bow-lee-yew) was selected to the Slamdance, Middlebury, and Ashland Film festivals.

Today, we’re talking about the intrinsic connection with social justice and hip hop, ways community members can be more involved in the state legislative process, and how he stays grounded while leading movements.

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