The Pecan Revolution

1876. The first U.S. pecan planting took place in Long Island, NY in 1772. In 1822, Abner Landrum of South Carolina discovered a pecan budding technique, which provided a way to graft plants derived from superior wild selections (or, in other words, to unite with a growing plant by placing in close contact). However, this invention was lost or overlooked until 1876 when an African-American slave gardener from Louisiana (named Antoine) successfully propagated pecans by grafting a superior wild pecan to seedling pecan stocks. Antoine’s clone was named “Centennial” because it won the Best Pecan Exhibited award at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. His 1876 planting, which eventually became 126 Centennial trees, was the first official planting of improved pecans. The successful use of grafting techniques led to grafted orchards of superior genotypes and proved to be a milestone for the pecan industry. The adoption of these techniques was slow and had little commercial impact—until the 1880’s when Louisiana and Texas nurserymen learned of pecan grafting and began propagation on a commercial level.

Pecan trees can grow to over 100 feet tall and live to be over a thousand years old.

The term pecan comes from the Algonquin Indian word "pacane", meaning a nut that needs to be cracked with a stone. The Algonquins were a North American tribe located on the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers. Pecans were the main food staple for these Native Americans in the south central region of the United States.

A slave gardener on Oak Alley Plantation in southern Louisiana, remembered only by his first name of "Antoine", succeeded in grafting sixteen trees near the plantation mansion. Antoine's resulting cultivar was named "Centennial" in 1876 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the United States. Since that time, more than five hundred other pecan cultivars have been named. Many are named for Native American Indian tribes including Cheyenne, Kiowa, Sioux, Choctaw, and Creek. One managed acre of pecan trees can produce up to 1000 pounds. The United States produces about eighty percent of the world's pecan crop with an average yearly production of around 200 million pounds. The majority of these pecans are grown in the "Pecan Belt" stretching across the southeast to the southwest throughout some twenty states. This makes pecans a multi-state crop. The Praline is a family of confections made from nuts and sugar syrup. In Europe, the nuts are usually almonds or hazelnuts. In the South, pecans are almost always used. the pecan is the only nut specie that is indigenous to North America. Pecans were a staple food source and trade item for many native American tribes and may have also been used to produce an intoxicating liquor, called Powcohicora, according to one source. Not succeeding in this effort, Doctor Colomb later cut scions from the original tree and took them to the late Telesphore J. Roman, owner of Oak Alley plantation, on the east (sic, should be 'west') bank of the river, whose slave gardener, Antoine by name, succeeded in grafting 16 trees near the mansion and quarters with this variety in the winter of 1846 or 1847. The most noted slave who lived on Oak Alley Plantation was named Antoine. He was listed as "Antoine, 38, Creole Negro gardener/expert grafter of pecan trees", with a value of $1,000 in the inventory of the estate conducted on J.T. Roman's death. Antoine was a master of the techniques of grafting, and after trial with several trees, succeeded in the winter of 1846 in producing a variety of pecan that could be cracked with one's bare hands; the shell was so thin it was dubbed the "paper shell" pecan.

On Oct. 27, 1994 the U.S. Justice Department announced that the prison population topped one million for the first time in U.S. history. The figure—1,012,851 women and men in state and federal prisons—did not even include local prisons, where an estimated 500,000 prisoners were held, usually for short periods. Learn more about the US criminal justice system from The New Jim Crow (http://bit.ly/1zAcqmk) by Michelle Alexander. Have you used the book with your students?

October 27, 1968. 120,000 people marched in London against the Vietnam War. Here is a free 100-page guide for teaching your students about the history of the Vietnam War and resistance to the war: http://bit.ly/1zzHnXX Image: Press Association — with RasQueen Nefertiti Barnett.

October 28, 1985. Nicaragua's first democratically elected president in decades, Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, entered office on October 28, 1985. Here is a teaching guide about Nicaragua (http://bit.ly/1yGOMQW) and more lessons about Central America.(http://bit.ly/1u4jRjp). Mural in Leon, Nicaragua about the Sandinista struggle against the dictatorship of Somoza.

On Oct 28, 1964, U.S. officials denied any involvement in the bombing of North Vietnam. This was one of many lies told by the gov't. throughout the decades long war that were exposed by popular education resources such as Vietnam: An Antiwar Comic Book by Julian Bond (image below, full book here: http://bit.ly/SpEh15), whistleblowers such as Daniel Ellsberg and Tony Russo (see lessons: http://bit.ly/hZWWCH), and the underground newspapers produced by soldiers around the world (see film Sir! No Sir!:http://bit.ly/MKcOWg).

October 29, 1969, U.S. Federal Judge Julius Hoffman ordered a defendant in the courtroom gagged and chained to a chair during his trial after he repeatedly asserted his right to an attorney of his own choosing or to defend himself. The defendant, The Black Panther Party leader Bobby Seale, and seven others had been charged with conspiring to cross state lines "with the intent to incite, organize, promote, encourage, participate in, and carry out a riot" by organizing the anti-war demonstrations in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.The Chicago Eight included Seale, David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Lee Weiner, and John Froines. Here is a lesson to teach about the Black Panther Party. http://bit.ly/1sC2LSA.

October 29, 1969. On this anniversary of the Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education Supreme Court ruling on desegregation (Oct. 29, 1969), we remember the vital work of Charles Hamilton Houston who paved the way for many of the legal victories of the Civil Rights Movement. As he prepared the lawyers whose names and cases we recognize today he explained: “A lawyer is either a social engineer or [s]he is a parasite on society.” He also recognized that laws alone are not enough: “There’s a difference between law on the books and the law in action.” Learn more in the film "The Road to Brown" from California Newsreel: http://bit.ly/QOIoSJ See a new, stunning portrait of Houston by Robert Shetterly of Americans Who Tell the Truth, available as a poster for $20: http://bit.ly/1wFoRtw Image: National Museum of American History.

October 30, 1959, Luther Jackson was murdered by then Phil., Miss. policeman Lawrence Rainey. Rainey was not prosecuted and went on to become Neshoba County Sheriff, where he was accused of playing a role in the cover up of the 1964 murders of civil rights workers James Chaney,Andrew Goodman, and Micky Schwerner. Jackson's was one of many racially motivated murders investigated by Medgar Evers as field secretary for the Mississippi NAACP. As quoted in the book "Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi," Myrlie Evers-Williams explained that Medgar Evers "investigated, filed complaints, literally dragged reporters to the scenes of the crimes, fought back with press releases, seeking always to spread the word beyond the state, involve the federal gov't., bring help from the outside." Read more on this page from the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ): http://bit.ly/XRJwce and in Local People:http://bit.ly/Ud77ip Image from Pittsburgh Courier, retrieved from the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission archives at MDAH.

The cyanide process. Sounds toxic, yes? It appears on this list for only one reason: It is used to extract gold from ore. “Gold is the life blood of trade,” and in 1913 it was considered to be the foundation for international commerce and national currencies.

Invention of the American Dollar Bill. Paper Money. By the late 19th century many nations had begun issuing government-backed legal tender that could no longer be converted into gold or silver. The switch to paper money not only bailed out struggling governments during times of crisis—as it did for the United States during the Civil War—but it also ushered in a new era of international monetary regulation that changed the face of global economics. Perhaps even more importantly, paper currency was the vital first step in a new monetary system that led to the birth of credit cards and electronic banking.