Cover Story
Silencing Stigma With Awareness – Video of speech
Editorial Board
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, The Reverend Irene Monroe is an ordained minister, motivational speaker and she speaks for a sector of society that is frequently invisible. Rev. Monroe does a weekly Monday segment, “All Revved Up!” on WGBH (89.7 FM), on Boston Public Radio and a weekly Friday segment “The Take” on New…
June 12, 2025 2 min read Free to read
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board
member and Columnist, The Reverend
Irene Monroe is an ordained minister,
motivational speaker and she speaks for
a sector of society that is frequently
invisible. Rev. Monroe does a weekly
Monday segment, “All Revved Up!” on
WGBH (89.7 FM), on Boston Public Radio
and a weekly Friday segment “The Take”
on New England Channel NEWS (NECN).
She’s a Huffington Post blogger and a
syndicated religion columnist. Her
columns appear in cities across the
country and in the U.K, and Canada. Also
she writes a column in the Boston home
LGBTQ newspaper Baywindows and
Cambridge Chronicle. A native of
Brooklyn, NY, Rev. 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 has received the
Harvard University Certificate of
Distinction in Teaching several times
while being the head teaching fellow of
the Rev. Peter Gomes, the Pusey Minister
in the Memorial Church at Harvard who is
the author of the best seller, THE GOOD
BOOK. She appears in the film For the
Bible Tells Me So and was profiled in the
Gay Pride episode of In the Life, an
Emmy-nominated segment. Monroe’s
coming out story is profiled in “CRISIS:
40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social,
and Religious Pain and Trauma of
Growing up Gay in America” and in
“Youth in Crisis.” In 1997 Boston
Magazine cited her as one of Boston’s 50
Most Intriguing Women, and was profiled
twice in the Boston Globe, In the Living
Arts and The Spiritual Life sections for
her LGBT activism. Her papers are at the
Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College’s
research library on the history of women
irenemonroe.com. Contact the Rev.
Monroe and BC.
© 2002–2026 BlackCommentator.com
Free to reprint with attribution and a link to our home page.
Join the conversation
Commenting is for Members
Reading is always free. Become a member to add your voice — comment on every column.