Editing Carrollton, Alabama (section)

==History==
Incorporated in 1831, the town was named after [[Charles Carroll of Carrollton]], [[Maryland]], the only Roman Catholic and longest-living signer of the Declaration of Independence.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=BhUhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=DZsEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6053%2C2838607 | title=Maryland patriot gave city name | work=The Tuscaloosa News | date=September 19, 1965 | access-date=May 28, 2015 | author=Watkins, Ed | pages=18}}</ref> A post office has been in operation at Carrollton since 1831.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.postalhistory.com/postoffices.asp?task=display&state=AL&county=Pickens | title=Pickens County | publisher=Jim Forte Postal History | access-date=May 28, 2015}}</ref>

The county jail was located at the courthouse. The courthouse square was used frequently as a site for public [[Lynchings in the United States|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.<ref name="Gibson">{{cite news|title=Negro Lynched|url=https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83016943/1907-08-31/ed-1/seq-2/|access-date=December 16, 2017|publisher=Macon Beacon|date=August 31, 1907}}</ref> Pickens County had the fifth highest total of lynchings in Alabama, according to ''Lynching in America'' (2015, 3rd edition), published by the [[Equal Justice Initiative]].