Image
Rodney McKenzie, Jr. is an experienced community organizer, movement leader and out person of faith who brings to Dēmos over fifteen years of experience fighting for grassroots political power in marginalized communities. Before joining Dēmos, Rodney was the Director of the Academy for Leadership and Action at the National LGBTQ Task Force, where he led the grassroots organizing strategy that focused on faith organizing across the country. His work at the Task Force focused on disrupting the national narrative that LGBTQ people aren’t people of faith and that people of faith don’t support LGBTQ equality.
Earlier in his career, Rodney was the Spiritual Director and Co-Creator of Expansion Church, where his leadership focused on the intersection of community organizing and radical spirituality in the public square. He also served as Executive Director of Resource Generation and the first Coordinating Director for the Pushback Network. At Pushback he coordinated a state based network that centered it’s time and resources on building grassroots political power through community organizing and voter engagement.
Rodney holds a Master of Divinity from the Union Theological Seminary. By putting James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, Essex Hemphill and the Apostle Paul in conversation, his theological work challenges how theology and LGBTQI politics approaches the intersection of race, class and sexuality through a radical faith frame.
Rodney currently lives in Washington, DC.
