Riverside Chats

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 invol