A Change Is Gonna Come---Snellville Elementary-to-Anderson Livsey Elementary

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) November 22, 2009 -- Pictured: Thomas and Dorethia Livsey-(2007 NAACP Couple Lifetime Acheivement Award Winners)

The word "No" should be enough information for most people to understand that whatever they are seeking or requesting is NOT going to happen. In the sales industry, the word "No" only signifies the customer's lack of information.

We are all programed to say no to anything we do not understand or are knowledgable about. No is really a cry for help. No is a starting point and is not the end. But for many of us, we take the word as a final ending obstacle facing our future advancement. We simply give up.

However, there should be another word placed in front of the word... Don't...As in Don't K(no)w ? Case in point:

The Andersons and the Livseys are two proud tri-racial families ( Black, White and Cherokee Indian ) of the Promised Land Plantation (Community) in south Gwinnett county Georgia. Neither one knows the word "No".

Recently, the two families have made headlines about trying to rename a new county school that is being erected in their oldest historical community, named the Promised Land. Its the oldest surviving Civil War plantation in Gwinnett county. Yet the school is being named after a great white family,(The Snells) ten miles away.

In 1818 Gwinnett County used a land lottery to attract settlers to its new land after taking it first from the Cherokees. In an attempt to homestead this new county the Maguires, the Livseys, the Andersons and the Snells became one of a handful of Gwinnett's "First Families" of the county as titled by the Gwinnett County Historical Society.

Thomas Maguire, an irish man who settled over 1000 acres in 1820 through a Gwinnett County Land Lottery that gave 250 acres to any white man. Maguire named his plantation the Promised Land because of its fertile soil. He wrote in his farm journal 'The land of promise'. Little did he know that one day his diary would become part of a world acclaimed novel. He maintained a daily farm journal that reflected the day in the life of Georgians day-to-day obstacles that they faced during the war between the states.

Maguire's diary depicted the trial and tribulations the citizens lived during General Sherman's "March to the Sea" His journal was so powerful that it attracted a young woman from Atlanta, Ga. in the 1920's after Robert Livsey purchased a portion of Maguire's plantation.

She frequently visited when she sought inspiration for her now famous novel, "Gone With The Wind". Her name was Margaret Mitchell.Many scholars believed that she used a good amount from the Promised Land Diary without credit. As to date, her novel continuous revenue in book sales along totals upwards in the mid 800 millions in sales....Not a penny to the Promised Land!

So again today Gwinnett county is trying to cover up the heritage and contribution of these two respectful miniority families of the Promised Land to the growth and civic involvement of this county.

georgia board of education     gwinnett county     Promised Land     Snell Elementary School     Thomas Livsey