 The courthouse square was used frequently as a site for public lynchings by whites of African Americans, part of numerous efforts to suppress them during a time of high tensions as whites struggled for dominance.It was part of a program of intimidation and racial terrorism, with these murders frequent in the decades on either side of the turn of the 20th century.Among the numerous African Americans lynched in Carrollton was John Gibson, hanged on August 28, 1907.