Susan Fitzmaurice, founder
Susan (she/her cis) has been a disability advocate and activist most of her life. Her passion for disability rights began before she knew what they were. She read about Dorothea Dix, Helen Keller, and Jane Addams in third grade, and they became her mentors. On her 14th birthday she celebrated by beginning weekly volunteer work as a candy-striper at Plymouth State Home and Training School which she continued until graduation from high school. Her first degree was a BPh in Societal Realities from Thomas Jefferson College at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. She then studied special education at Bank Street Graduate School in New York City, where she taught pre-school and 3/4 grade, directed a private nursery school, and ran an in-home day care.
She returned home to Michigan after adopting her son Teddy. She created a bookstore called “The Curious Child” and specialized in books for children with disabilities and their parents and caregivers. She had an online romance, and moved for a few years to Norfolk, England. Afterwards, she went to Syracuse University for degrees in rehabilitation counseling and disability studies. With degrees in hand, she returned again to Michigan and began a decade as the ADA Coordinator for the city of Dearborn. When that position ended, she began to work as the Accessibility Coordinator for VSA Michigan (now Michigan Arts Access). She and her son Teddy, began working on a book together, still unfinished.
Throughout this time Susan has taken on a number of issues. She created an exhaustive sex resource on the web for people with disabilities, a website in response to the Katrina Hurricane that created an emergency resource page for people with disabilities for every state. For five years she organized the Reel Life Film Festival. She gathered over 1,500 signatures in Solidarity for AshleyX, a response she wrote to a parent’s choice to limit their significantly disabled child’s growth to keep them easier to physically manage. In 2015, she organized the ADA Celebration in Detroit, where bover 2,000 celebrated. She organized the 30th Anniversary ADA celebration held online via Zoom for nine weeks. Out of that experience came Judi Chamberlin’s Room, a monthly collaboration with MibdFreedom International, to explore psycho-social topics related to the lived experiences of people with all disabilities. She organized the Michigan stops for the 2024 Caravan for Disability Freedom and Justice. Now her focus is on the Disability History and Culture Collective. she initiated Devva Kasnitz’s Room Disability Studies for All! in honor of Devva Kasnitz and soon will start Justin Dart’s Room – Shared Storytelling.