Note: This article about TJ appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer ten years ago (1996).
'3328' now has respected name
This article appeared in the Sunday Enquirer, April 21, 1996.
Imagine that you are a baby in Connecticut 43 years ago. Your mother has too many problems to care for you or your siblings and gives you to social workers. You go from foster home to foster home, with no sense of family.
Imagine that when you are 8, people realize you don't learn the way other children do. You are mentally retarded, they say, and must live in an institution.
At the Southbury Training School, some people call you Tommy. Mostly, though, they call you "3328." Imagine that your childhood passes in such a place - 11 years as "3328" - with no one to take you home for Christmas or your birthday.
Now imagine that you are T. J. Monroe, a 43 year old Cincinnati newcomer - he moved here in February 1995 - who was recognized Tuesday night by the ARC of Hamilton County for Excellence in Self Advocacy, and you'll know how you have dealt with such bleak beginnings: with courage, leadership and a charisma that earns friends wherever you go.
Mr. Monroe doesn't have a high school diploma, but friends on the President's Commission on Mental Retardation (PCMR) sometimes refer to him as Dr. Monroe. He was the first person with mental retardation to be appointed to PCMR. He has not been reticent in offering advice to fellow commissioners, to professionals or to President Clinton.
Mr. Monroe's role as a self advocate began with an episode of Perry Mason. Mr. Monroe remembers finishing up his chores in the group home in 1982. He tuned in a Perry Mason episode about a man in a wheelchair falsely accused of murder. He recalls the TV lawyer telling the man that "everybody has rights."
The next day, Mr. Monroe called in sick to his job at the sheltered workshop, went to the Hartford Office of Protection and Advocacy and told the secretary that he had come for his rights.
The secretary laughed, but Mr. Monroe had come for his rights. He wasn't leaving without them.
Eventually, he met Sharon Johnson, a state worker who would become a friend and who gave him a letter that day stating his rights to make choices for himself.
Since then, Mr. Monroe has organized a conference for 300 Connecticut residents with disabilities to teach them about their rights, worked as a VISTA volunteer in Tennessee, and has spoken at many People First and other conferences around the country.
In the Westin's Taft Ballroom Tuesday night, Mr. Monroe accepted his award by asking the esteemed dinner crowd to stand up. Everyone stood. "Now sit down," he said. Everyone sat.
"I was a client at an institution for 11 years," he said later, "so how come people listen to me? I want them to listen to all clients, to all people, and to know that labels hurt us."
He's looking for a job today. Wherever he goes - in the apartment building for older adults where he lives and assists with meal delivery or at the Back Door Saloon, Greenhills, where he plays on the dart team - Mr. Monroe is constantly teaching. He grew up with the labels of "3328" and "retarded" and he is passionate in his quest to keep such labels from others.
"I asked President Clinton to close all the institutions," Mr. Monroe says of his March visit, "and to speak out more about disability - and I told him I want to help him.
And it is that simple, sincere commitment to help that has earned Mr. Monroe such a wide circle of friends and generous allotments of respect. This Southbury Training School "graduate" with no high school diploma has much to say and an inordinate amount of sense to teach to us all.
Whether the audience is the President or schoolchildren, his enthusiasm and message are the same: "I have rights. I am a person. I have a name."
Article is copyrighted by the Cincinnati Enquirer. © Cincinnati Enquirer, 1996.
Deborah Kendrick, a Cincinnati writer who is blind, is a nationally recognized advocate for people with disabilities. Ms. Kendrick, formerly a columnist with the Cincinnati Enquirer ( "Alive and Well" ), is now a contributing writer for City Beat ("In My View"). Ms. Kendrick's column appears in the third Wednesday's edition of City Beat. You should be able to reach Ms. Kendrick through City Beat's email