 In 1958 Jimmy Wilson, a black man, was sentenced to death by a jury in Marion for stealing $1.95 from Estelle Barker.Wilson's case became an international cause célèbre, covered in newspapers worldwide and inspiring over 1000 letters per day to the office of governor Jim Folsom.Finally, after the Alabama Supreme Court upheld Wilson's conviction, at the urging of the Congress of Racial Equality, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles wrote to Folsom explaining the damage that the case was doing to the international reputation of the United States and Folsom quickly granted Wilson clemency.