June’s Worthy Ground Book Club

June Selection by Joe Tolbert, Jr.

Worthy Ground's Book Club is a space for shared learning and reflection on the ideas, stories, and histories shaping long term recovery in Appalachia.

Each month, we invite a guest from across our regional ecosystem to select a piece of reading that has influenced how they think about community, resilience, and the future of this region. These selections may be books, essays, articles, or other written works that help us better understand the work of building stronger communities.

This month's recommendation comes from Joe Tolbert, Jr., Executive Director of the Waymakers Collective.

Joe selected Beautiful Solutions: A Toolbox for Liberation, edited by Rachel Plattus, Elandria Williams, Eli Feghali, and Nathan Schneider.

About Joe Tolbert, Jr.

Joe Tolbert, Jr. serves as Executive Director of the Waymakers Collective, an organization dedicated to cultivating leadership, advancing equity, and building stronger communities through collaboration and collective action.

Throughout his work, Joe has focused on helping people imagine new possibilities for their communities while creating pathways to turn those possibilities into action. His leadership centers relationship building, community empowerment, and creating space for people to shape their own futures.

Why This Reading

For Joe, Beautiful Solutions is both practical and deeply personal.

He writes:

"I chose this book because it is the work of my mentor Elandria Williams, who pushed my imagination on what is possible to manifest in this world when we bring people together for a common purpose. I also chose this book because it shows us the solutions we seek are here now, and that we need to stay connected to those around the world who are impacting our future by practicing the beautiful solutions now."

At its heart, Beautiful Solutions is a collection of stories, tools, and lessons from communities around the world that are building alternatives to systems that no longer serve them. Rather than focusing solely on problems, the book highlights the creativity, wisdom, and collective action already taking place in communities working toward a more just future.

Honoring a Legacy of Imagination

Remembering Elandria Williams

Joe's connection to Beautiful Solutions is also a reflection of the lasting impact of Elandria Williams, one of the book's editors and a mentor to countless organizers, educators, and movement leaders.

Born and raised in Appalachia, Elandria dedicated her life to helping people imagine and build a more just world. Through her work with organizations including the Highlander Research and Education Center and PeoplesHub, she created spaces where communities could learn from one another, strengthen their leadership, and move collective visions into action.

Her work was rooted in a simple but powerful belief: the solutions we need already exist within our communities. Our task is to recognize them, nurture them, and connect them to one another.

That belief lives throughout Beautiful Solutions and continues to inspire leaders like Joe and many others working across Appalachia and beyond.

Why It Matters

At Worthy Ground, we often talk about recovery as a long term process.

Recovery requires resources, investment, and infrastructure. But it also requires imagination.

Communities facing disasters, economic transition, and generations of disinvestment must be able to envision what comes next. They must be able to see possibilities beyond the immediate challenges in front of them.

That is what makes Beautiful Solutions such a fitting selection.

Across Appalachia, we see examples of these beautiful solutions every day. Neighbors supporting one another after floods. Community leaders creating new opportunities. Organizations collaborating across sectors to strengthen resilience and invest in local futures.

The stories we feature through Worthy Ground often begin after a disaster, but they are ultimately stories about people choosing to build something stronger together. They remind us that resilience is not created by any one organization or institution. It grows through relationships, shared purpose, and the belief that communities themselves hold the knowledge needed to move forward.

Beautiful Solutions challenges us to look for those examples already taking shape around us and to recognize that the future is not something that simply happens to us. It is something we create together.

Read With Us

If you'd like to explore Beautiful Solutions, we encourage you to support independent bookstores whenever possible, including regional bookstores throughout Appalachia, like Atlas Books based out of Johnson City, Tennesee.

You can also purchase through Bookshop.org, which helps support locally owned bookstores across the country.

Each month, we'll continue inviting guest curators to share readings that shape how they think about Appalachia, resilience, and long term recovery.

Because the future is not something we inherit. It is something we build together.