![]() ![]() After the war, Winn became a Populist enclave. At a convention called in 1861 to decide whether Louisiana should join the Confederacy, the delegate from Whin voted against secession: “Who wants to fight to keep the Negroes for the wealthy planters?” he asked. The major crop in Winn has always been dissent. This is Winn Parish, where, as one historian has described it, “a man would skin a flea for the hide and tallow.” The people there have said that they make a living by taking in each other’s washing. (Huey recalled that a Methodist preacher moved to Winn and would have starved to death had it not been for the charity of the Long family.) It is a parish of small farms and cutover timber lands. Replied Huey, “I’m a hillbilly-like yourself.”) It is Baptist country. (Former President Calvin Coolidge, visiting Louisiana in 1930, asked Huey Long what part of the state he came from. In Louisiana, counties are called parishes, and Winn, in the north-central part of the state, was destined by incorporation to be the poorest of the poor: when the land was divided, Winn got what nobody else wanted. Long brought his family from Mississippi in 1859. To the state of Louisiana and the parish of Winn, John M. ![]()
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