Disability Rights Consultant, Founder of Ramp Your Voice!
Vilissa Thompson is a Licensed Master Social Worker (LMSW) from Winnsboro, SC. Vilissa is the Founder & CEO of Ramp Your Voice!, an organization focused on promoting self-advocacy and strengthening empowerment among disabled people. Being a Disability Rights Consultant, Writer, & Activist affords Vilissa the opportunity to be a prominent leader and expert in addressing and educating the public and political figures about the plight of disabled people, especially Black women and femmes with disabilities.
She has been featured in The Today Show for speaking on pop culture topics, such as the passing of Malcolm-Jamal Warner and how his character Theodore Huxtable was important to disability representation. She was spotlighted on the Wake Up with Dee Morning Show in Atlanta, GA for Disability Pride Month. She has also appeared in YES! Magazine, Prism Reports, The Nation, Pop Sugar, NPR, Rewire, Teen Vogue, The Hill, NY Times, Huffington Post, and Buzzfeed. In 2020, she was as a consultant for the Sen. Elizabeth Warren presidential campaign, where she assisted in the development of the Disability Rights & Equality policy plan.
Vilissa is a dynamic creative and visionary – she established one of the first conferences that centers Black disabled people – a for us, by us initiative. The Ramp Your Voice! Conference allows disabled Black women, femmes, non-cishet men to showcase their talents, and speak on the topics that matters to them. With the diversity of the speakers offered, this biennial conference demonstrates that the Black disabled community deserves to be seen, heard, and uplifted that marks who they uniquely are. Vilissa didn’t ask for a seat at the table – she made her own for those like her.
She is also developing a pilot program that centers the realities of BIPOC rising college seniors with disabilities. Vilissa knows from experience that figuring out your career path after graduation is different for disabled college students – creating space for them to share what they need, have peer-to-peer support, and hear from those who had to define their careers on their terms is the purpose of this initiative.
She created the #DisabilityTooWhite viral hashtag in 2016 that addressed the lack of diversity within the disability community, and how a lack of representation impacts disabled people of color and their ability to feel fully included and accepted within the community. Demanding that diverse disabled experiences be seen within the media and the collective community is a mission for Vilissa’s activism focus, and she aims to make this a permanent reality.
Everything she does revolves around being unapologetically herself – Black, disabled, and making good trouble to shake up the status quo.
Our speakers get attention.
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A Disability-Rights Consultant and Social Worker Explains How to Check Your Ableism Every DayLicensed social worker and disability consultant Vilissa Thompson, LMSW, was born with osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), a rare group of disorders better known as brittle bone disease.
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A Beautifully “Wicked” Approach to DisabilityDespite being pitied for the color of their skin or wheelchair use, the film’s characters don’t let society define them—or their power.
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The Media, Disability, and MeWorking in media has always been an uphill battle for disabled writers, but an ever-shrinking industry gives “hard” a whole new meaning.
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By exceeding my life expectancy, I’ve become a model for other Black disabled womenGetting older is considered a privilege for disabled people, who must also navigate grief and loss more often than others
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Disability Pride Month spotlight: Vilissa ThompsonJoin Dr. Dee Dawkins-Haigler on WAOK for a compelling Disability Pride Month audio spotlight featuring Vilissa Thompson, a trailblazing Black disabled activist and founder of Ramp Your Voice!
