It’s our big Birthday Week, so we’re compiling some of our best posts over the first year (!) of our existence. Today, we’re highlighting some of our favorite interviews over the past 12 months. 

To mark the occasion, we’ve taken down the paywall from an exclusive collection of posts that were previously available only to our paid subscribers. They’re now free for all of you to read! (Look for the words “UNLOCKED” in the headlines.)

We’re delighted to have made it to a year, but we need your help to get us to our second birthday! If you appreciate the work in this post, please consider becoming a paid subscriber so we can do even more of it. Subscriptions start at just $8 a month.

OK, let's do it!

'Fired Amazon Dissident Maren Costa on How to Organize at an Evil Company,' by Jack Crosbie

“We have tech workers volunteering to send out the next email that will probably get them fired. I do think that workers will win this fight. A few more people may need to be fired, but I do think we’re standing on the right side of history, and it’s just a matter of time.”

‘Black Women Are, Always Have Been, and Will Continue To Be the Leaders,’ by Caitlin Schneider

Discourses with: historian Ashley D. Farmer on Black women, Black radicalism, and Black history.

'A Florida Democrat on Why Florida Democrats Keep Losing,' by Paul Blest (UNLOCKED)

“It was a bloodbath for Democrats,” Eskamani told Discourse Blog in a Friday phone interview. “In Florida, there really wasn’t a message that offered voters anything to be attracted to.”

'Discourses With: Two Texas Mutual Aid Organizers,' by Samantha Grasso

“Mutual aid before the protests and after are all part of the same thing, and mutual aid has to step in and help provide for people in times of state repression, which COVID and this uprising represent.”

‘Scooby Don Impressionist James Austin Johnson on How to Impersonate Our Dying Wet President,' by Jack Crosbie

"That’s the main thing I focus on, is that this is a rasping old man who is inches from death at any moment. He’s dying. He’s inches from death and Billy Crystal has come out with the bellows from the Princess Bride and they pumped him full of steroids and give him a big shot in his ass, and he’s hanging on for dear life every moment of the day."

'You Need to be Alarmed,' by Samantha Grasso

Discourses with: a non-binary, Black director of two Southern abortion funds.

'Ben Smith Doesn't Want to Pick a Side,' by Jack Crosbie

Discourses with the New York Times media columnist.

'Discourses With: Two Chicago Tenants’ Rights Organizers,' by Samantha Grasso (UNLOCKED)

"We were stonewalled, so it became clear that we had to escalate if we wanted to get any progress with our landlord, and the city, state, and federal governments. We’ve organized rent strikes for two months, and withheld our rent in order to get our demands met."

Images: Kelly Davidson; MSNBC; jramspott/Flickr, remix by Samantha Grasso; Twitter screenshot