The Reverend Monroe is an ordained minister and motivational speaker
who speaks for a sector of society that is frequently invisible. She
does a weekly Monday segment, now a podcast called “All Revved Up!” on
WGBH (89.7 FM), a Boston member station of National Public Radio (NPR).
She is also a weekly Friday commentator on New England Channel NEWS
(NECN), and is the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage
Trail, the Guided Walking Tour of Beacon Hill: Boston’s Black Women
Abolitionists.
A Huffington Post blogger and a syndicated religion columnist, Rev.
Monroe’s columns appear in 23 cities across the country and in the U.K,
Ireland, and Canada. She also writes a weekly column in the Boston home
LGBTQ newspaper Baywindows, Cambridge Chronicle, and Opinion pieces for the Boston Globe. She
states that her "columns are an interdisciplinary approach drawing on
critical race theory, African American, queer, and religious studies,”
while also focusing on sexism, classism, and anti-Semitism. She has
spoken on these issues at the United Nations International School.
Rev. Monroe, a founder and now member emeritus of the National Black
Justice Coalition (NBJC), is also a founder of Equal Partners of Faith,
the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry (RCFM), and Christian
Lesbians Out (CLOUT). Chosen in October 2009 by MSNBC as one of "10
Black Women You Should Know," Monroe has been profiled in O, the Oprah
Magazine, and also in the Gay Pride Episode of "In the Life TV," a
segment nominated for an educational Emmy.
A native of Brooklyn, NY, Monroe graduated from Wellesley College and
Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University, and served as a
pastor at an African-American church in New Jersey before coming to
Harvard Divinity School to do her doctorate. She received the Harvard
University Certificate of Distinction in Teaching several times while
being the head teaching fellow of the Rev. Peter Gomes, the Harvard
Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church.
Featured in the film, "For the Bible Tells Me So," an exploration of
the intersection between religion and homosexuality in the U.S., her
coming out story is profiled in "CRISIS: 40 Stories Revealing the
Personal, Social, and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing up Gay in
America," as well as in "Youth in Crisis." Profiled twice in the Boston
Globe for her LGBT activism, in 1997 Boston Magazine cited her as one
of Boston's 50 Most Intriguing Women, and in 1998 Monroe was the first
African American lesbian to be bestowed the honor of being Grand
Marshall in the Boston Pride Celebration. For her activism, she has
received numerous awards, and her papers are in the Schlesinger Library
at Radcliffe College's research library on the history of women in
America.