[6][9] Russell's ministry focused on leadership development with the mostly Black and Hispanic members of the congregation to become leaders in the parish and the community.
[13] In the fall of 1969, Russell began her academic career as assistant professor of Religious Studies at Manhattan College, Bronx, New York where she taught Protestant theology.
In the 1990s, she and her partner, Shannon Clarkson, were active in the "Save the Quad" movement that prevented the demolition of Sterling Divinity Quadrangle.
[16] Russell was a leader in the ecumenical movement and she served on several units of the World Council of Churches, including the Faith and Order Commission from 1975 to 1983 and was one of the drafters of the document "Giving Account of the Hope Together" (Bangalore, India, 1978).
Working Group on the participation of Women in the World Council of Churches and as religious consultant to the National Board of the YWCA.
Russell died of cancer on July 12, 2007, in her home in Guilford, CT. She was survived by her spouse, Shannon Clarkson,[9] an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ.
"[19] Nancy Richardson, a lecturer at Harvard Divinity School and university chaplain, reflected, "Letty was a foremother of feminist theology.
"[20] In an introduction to a Festschrift published in Russell's honor in 1999 under the title Liberating Eschatology, fellow Yale Divinity School theologians Margaret Farley and Serene Jones called Russell's influence on contemporary theology "monumental" and wrote of her "uncanny ability to articulate a vision of the church that is radical in its feminist-liberationist critique but that nonetheless remains anchored in the historic traditions and communities of the Christian church.
"[21] In one of her last major public addresses, the annual Paul Tillich Lecture delivered at Harvard University in May 2006, Russell spoke to the role of the Church in confronting injustice.
[17] Russell described the goal of this program as empowering women "from countries of the South as they become leaders in their communities and therefore subjects of their own theology and history.
M. Shawn Copeland, an American scholar and associate professor of systematic theology at Boston College, said, "Letty Russell has been the towering feminist theologian of her generation.
The seeds she has sown have flowered and will bear fruit for years to come.”[19] In March 2022, Yale Divinity School announced the establishment of The Letty Russell and Shannon Clarkson '78 M.Div.
The scholarship constitutes "an expression of [Reichard's] gratitude for the contributions of Letty Russell, Professor of Liberation Theology at YDS, and her wife, Shannon Clarkson."