The Rev. Irene Monroe is described in O, the Oprah Magazine, as “a phenomenal woman who has succeeded against all odds.” Rev. Irene Monroe is a nationally acclaimed activist, ordained minister, lesbian feminist public theologian, and a sought-after motivational speaker and preacher. Rev. Monroe does the weekly Monday segment ALL REV’D UP on WGBH (89.7 FM) of Boston Public Radio, a Boston member station of National Public Radio (NPR), that’s also a podcast. Monroe is the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail and History UnErased. Monroe’s columns appear locally in Bay Windows, Cambridge Chronicle, Dig Boston, Op-eds pieces in the Boston Globe, Bay State Banner, to name a few.
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 as a Ford Fellow in the 1990s. Monroe was the head teaching fellow of the Reverend Peter Gomes in Memorial Church at Harvard, and was the National Religious Coordinator of the African American Roundtable for the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry at Pacific School of Religion. She was instrumental in Union United Methodist Church, a predominately African American church in Boston’s South End, becoming a Reconciling Congregation, first in New England. She did a children’s ministry at Old Cambridge Baptist Church in Cambridge. Monroe has taught at Harvard, Andover Newton Theological Seminary, Episcopal Divinity School and UNH.
Monroe is a founder and now member emeritus of several national LGBTQ+ black and religious organization and recipient of numerous awards, locally and nationally. Her papers are at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College’s research library on the history of women in America.
www.irenemonroe.com@revimonroe