Senior and Beats 4 Justice club founder Leo Horton was invited to speak at the National Environmental Justice Conference at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. on April 18.

The organization that Horton and Beats 4 Justice partnered with, Community & College Partner Program (C2P2), last August sponsored him to speak at the conference. This came after he and his partner, Shawn Pichardo, traveled to Jackson, Mississippi to teach adolescents in underserved communities how to make beats and write lyrics. 

Jackson, Mississippi, is heavily impacted by climate change and local flooding, which causes many of the community’s resources to be allocated to disaster relief. That’s where Beats 4 Justice and C2P2 come in. They provide free laptops along with the education and resources necessary to serve these impacted communities. 

C2P2 operates in 20 different states and assists low-income communities by providing pro bono technical assistance from colleges and universities based on their self-identified issues. 

At the conference, he spoke about what Beats 4 Justice has done as well as the program’s goals and missions. 

Horton said, “I summarized what we did in Mississippi. I played some short videos to show people the kids having fun because I feel like it’s important for people to have that emotional connection seeing that video. Then I talked about what we need, the goals for the future and what we need to achieve those goals. I talked about expanding and I talked about how the most important thing we need is actually connections with communities.”

Horton spoke about his experience at the conference . He said, “I was scared at first because it was a massive room. It was a 400-plus person auditorium. I knew that I had a good presentation and I practiced it a couple of times beforehand. So I had the confidence and, most importantly, knew that my project was going to speak to people and get people excited.”

At the conference, Horton said he made many connections and built relationships and hopes that Beats 4 Justice can continue to grow. This summer, he plans to teach a course on music production and lyric writing to students in Peekskill, New York, along with Pichardo.

Horton will attend Wesleyan University next fall, but he still plans to keep Beats 4 Justice active. He said, “This is something I want to grow because I know the potential of it. And when I talk about it, people just get excited. You know, I’m trying to keep going.”

Horton’s final words of inspiration were, “Just find something that you’re passionate about and just take the steps to make it happen.”