Future 40: Meet Disability Advocate Vilissa Thompson

Vilissa Thompson

Founder and CEO of Ramp Your Voice

Vilissa Thompson is a Licensed Master Social Worker and the founder and CEO of Ramp Your Voice, an organization that promotes self-advocacy and empowerment among disabled people. She launched Ramp Your Voice in 2013 because she wanted to enhance the voices she didn’t see a lot of growing up. The organization has turned into a platform for discussion on disability from an intersectional lens. 

A South Carolina native, she publicly addresses the lack of diversity within the disability community and the need to be seen within the media. Thompson is a disability rights consultant, writer and activist who has taken on the role as a prominent leader who can address the issues disabled people, specifically Black women, face. 

She assisted Sen. Elizabeth Warren in the development of the Disability Rights & Equality policy plan and is the co-host of the Wheelin’ & Dealin’ podcast.

Moving forward she has emphasized the need to be unapologetically herself, “Black, disabled, and making good trouble to shake up the status quo.”