Editing Bossier Parish, Louisiana (section)

==History==
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[[Image:Arnold-Tidwell House, Bossier Parish, LA IMG 6496.JPG|thumb|200px|Arnold-Tidwell House near the Cypress Lake recreational area is one of three [[History of the United States (1789–1849)|antebellum]] homes still standing in Bossier Parish.<ref>Arnold-Tidwell House, Historical marker, Bossier Parish, Louisiana</ref>]]
[[Image:Willis Knighton Hospital, Bossier City, LA IMG 3724.JPG|200px|thumb|Willis Knighton Hospital in Bossier City serves much of northern Bossier Parish.]]
[[Image:Cypress Lake, Bossier Parish, LA IMG 6497.JPG|200px|thumb|Swimmers at Cypress Lake on a cloudy summer day]]
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Bossier Parish is named for [[Pierre Bossier]],<ref>{{cite web |title=About Bossier Parish |url=https://www.bossierparishla.gov/experience-bossier-parish/about-bossier-parish#:~:text=On%20February%2024%2C%201843%2C%20Bossier,located%20on%20the%20Cane%20River. |website=Bossier Parish Police Jury |access-date=April 12, 2024}}</ref> an ethnic French, 19th-century [[Louisiana State Senate|Louisiana state senator]] and [[United States House of Representatives|U.S. representative]] from [[Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana|Natchitoches Parish]].

Bossier Parish was spared fighting on its soil during the [[American Civil War]]. In July 1861, at the start of the war, the Bossier Parish Police Jury appropriated $35,000 for the benefit of [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] volunteers and their family members left behind, an amount then considered generous.<ref>[[John D. Winters]], ''The Civil War in Louisiana'', [[Baton Rouge]]: [[Louisiana State University Press]], 1963, {{ISBN|0-8071-0834-0}}, p. 38</ref>

After the war, whites used violence and intimidation to maintain dominance over the newly emancipated [[freedmen]]. From the end of Reconstruction into the 20th century, violence increased as conservative white Democrats struggled to maintain power over the state. In this period, Bossier Parish had 26 lynchings of African Americans by whites, part of racial terrorism. This was the fifth-highest total of any parish in Louisiana, tied with the total in [[Iberia Parish]] in the South of the state.<ref>[https://eji.org/sites/default/files/lynching-in-america-third-edition-summary.pdf ''Lynching in America, Third Edition: Supplement by County''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171023063004/https://eji.org/sites/default/files/lynching-in-america-third-edition-summary.pdf |date=October 23, 2017 }}, p. 6, Equal Justice Initiative, Mobile, AL, 2017</ref> Overall, parishes in northwest Louisiana had the highest rates of lynchings.