The daughter to Haitian immigrants, Marie Louis was born at Kings County Hospital in 1972 and was raised on Carroll Street in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. Louis attended P.S. 241 and Holy Spirit Catholic School, then known as St. Theresa's. She entered a medical professions program in high school and graduated from A. Philip Randolph High in Harlem. Louis was an event organizer and president of the Black Students Organization during her time at Columbia University. She grew up attending church at St. Ignatius Roman Catholic Church and then, as an adult, St. Gregory's. In 1995, she worked for the Youth Development Institute, and in 1998, the Community Counseling & Mediation program. She served on the board that attained a Community Benefits Agreement in relation to the Atlantic Yards Project and then joined Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development (BUILD). Later, she became Chief Operating Officer of the organization. She married in 2007. After a six-month battle with cancer, she died in December, 2011. Among her survivors are her husband, five siblings and a son and daughter.