What Is The Scopes Trial In The 1920's

Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion concentrates on the Scopes trial, otherwise called the "Monkey Trial," which happened in Dayton, Tennessee in the mid year of 1925. The trial occurred in excess of a Tennessee law that banned the educating of human development out in the open schools. The American Civil Liberties Union needed to test the law, and a junior instructor named John Scopes, consented to help them. The alleged "trial of the century" united the well known government official and speaker, William Jennings Bryan, who headed the opposition to development campaign; and Clarence Darrow, who was viewed as the best criminal protection legal advisor of the time. The two men, plus their individual direction, clashed in the trail with the indictment in the end ready to maintain the law.

There are many similarities between the Scottsboro trial and the trial of Tom Robinson in the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. “No crime in American history—let alone a crime that never occurred—produced as many trials, convictions, reversals, and retrials as did an alleged gang rape of two white girls by nine black teenagers on a Southern railroad freight run on March 25, 1931” (Linder 1). The author of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee, was a young girl during the Scottsboro trial and based the trial of Tom Robinson in her novel off of the Scottsboro trial of 1931. The three main similarities between the Scottsboro trial and the trial of Tom Robinson are the geographic settings, the portrayal of racism, and the specifics of the court

During that time Johnson was the general secretary of the NAACP, and knew what impact the case would have on civil rights. Given this the NAACP aided those accused of the murder of Breiner, and a first-rate defense team was in the making. Assistant secretary Walter White was the main assistant of NAACP to find the best attorneys (who were not prejudiced, of course). He later meets Arthur Garfield Hays and Clarence Darrow and urges them to take the case. After agreeing they meet their clients about a month after the accident. Boyle shows how both James Weldon Johnson and Clarence Darrow had interior motives for defending the Sweets. Both men had a love for the spotlight, when speaking about Darrow, Boyle writes "in the glare of a high-profile case he found the perfect opportunity to attack the status quo and proclaim the modernist creed." The trial itself felt more of a civil rights case than a criminal case. The most impressive thing in regards to the actual trial was the performance done by Darrow. One could draw many similarities between him and To Kill A Mockingbird’s Atticus Finch. A common misconception of the courtroom is that the jury goes strictly off of evidence when deliberating. This book clears up that false belief with the attorneys playing off of emotion and targeting pathos. A strong argument presented by Darrow can be summarized by a few statements he made in that courtroom. “You are facing a problem of two races, a problem that will take centuries to solve. If I felt none of you were prejudiced, I'd have no fear. I want you to be as unprejudiced as you can be. Draw upon your imagination and think how you would feel if you fired at some black man in a black community, and then had to be tried by

The Scopes Trial is a standout amongst the most well-known trials in American history. The trial was a lawful case in 1925 in which a substitute high school teacher, John Scopes, was charged with violating Tennessee 's Butler Act, which made it illegal to teach Darwinism in any state-financed school. This trial was a gathering between various polar opposites, for example, Fundamentalism and Modernism. The clash between fundamentalism and modernism during the Scopes Trial had a significant impact on the American education system.

When Harper Lee was writing about the trial of Tom Robinson in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” she had a very real case to look to for inspiration. The trial of the Scottsboro Boys was a world renowned case in the 1930’s in which nine black youths were accused of raping to white girls in Alabama. Lee’s novel took this case and created the fictional case of Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a lower class white girl in a small town in Alabama during the Depression-era. The Scottsboro trials were the main source of inspiration for Lee’s novel, and although the circumstances of the novel differed from the real-life scandal, the similarities between the two cases are quite abundant.

The Supreme Court decision in Buck v. Bell displays some clues to the values of early twentieth century American society. The interpretation of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution is the lynchpin of the decision, and the values of the court can be derived from it. In this essay I will demonstrate that the ambiguity of the Amendment in question has significant consequences, the ethics of the interpretation of the Amendment is derived form the paternalistic nature of the Constitution, and that equality of the law is subservient to the desire for a homogeneous and comfortable cultural environment.

Clarence Darrow builds a potent argument against the creation of the Butler Act and the state of Tennessee's choice to outlaw the theory of evolution in favor of the Bible’s interpretation of the creation of humans by providing the audience with a clear understanding of the negative connotations of these choices. He clearly states that the decision of the government is an impediment between traditional beliefs and progression. Darrow claims that the act is a “brazen….attempt to destroy learning as ever was made during the Middle Ages” (Transcript A, Paragraph 1). By connecting the act to a period of time often associated with a lack of knowledge, Darrow is able to portray the act as oppressive and convince the audience to fear for the damage

Next Larson explores the role the ACLU played in the Scopes Trial. They saw the Scopes trial as a means to advance the rights of laborers and academic freedom using the First Amendment. Clarence Darrow, when he heard that William Jennings Bryan would be prosecuting the trial, eagerly joined the ACLU defense team. Darrow claimed that he was fighting for individual rights but he was also obsessed in his determination to overturn the fundamentalist adherence to creationism. Larson delves deep into the internal documents of the ACLU to reveal how difficult it was to control Darrow and keep the case centered on a test of the law, not creationism. By revealing the ACLU’s agenda, Larson effectively shows that the Scopes trial was a battle between the concept of majority rule and individual rights.

The law, which had been passed in March, made it a misdemeanor punishable by fine to ‘teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.”’ “Nearly a thousand people, 300 of whom were standing, jammed the Rhea County Courthouse on July 10, 1925 for the first day of

In 1925, a young Tennessee school teacher named John T. Scopes defied the state’s law prohibiting the teaching of evolution. Scopes was arrested and the case immediately got national headlines causing William Jennings Bryan to announce his intention to join the prosecution. Then, the ACLU got involved and offered to defend Scopes. When Darrow heard about the case, he said he would defend the school teacher free of charge. To Darrow’s thinking, Bryan was the embodiment of all those aspects of rural America that Darrow had escaped so many years before.

Days III was charged with the task of defending the constitutionality of the Guns-Free School Zones Act. He argued that because carrying a firearm onto school property could lead to a potentially dangerous situation, it became Congress's job to pass a law regulating it. While this was a solid state of mind, O’Connor wanted to know how this law was a matter of congress. In the very beginning of the trial O’Connor asked, “Is the simple possession of something at or near a school ‘commerce’ at all?”. (97) From the start of this trial it was clear that Day’s argument was going downhill, and four of the Justices only had one question. Was it even possible to regulate the act in question? In the end the justices had an answer to the question, and it was

A set of military trials held after the Second World War between 1945 to 1947 by the Allies in the city of Nuremberg, Germany, is known as the Nuremberg Trials. This series of Trials aimed to prosecute the war criminals whom were former prominent leaders in the Nazi Party, or had participated in the deportation and annihilation of the Jewish race during the Second World War. The judges were from France, Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union and the indictments were divided into three major sections: Crimes against peace, humanity and War crimes (“JURISDICTION AND GENERAL PRINCIPLES” 6). Ultimately, ten war criminals were sentenced to death, excluding Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, and Joseph Goebbels, who had committed

In Stanley Kramer’s film, “Inherit the Wind”; the movie is focused on the 1925 Scopes trial that occurred in Dayton, Tennessee. John Scopes, a substitute high school teacher at the time, was accused of violating the Butler Act which said it teaching the theory of human evolution in any state funded school was unlawful. He was arrested for going against the state law and the trial The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes was held in Dayton, Tennessee. The trial was started in order to attract attention to the small town of Dayton to the world giving the town intense national publicity. Many news stations and reporters immediately went to Dayton to cover one of the most controversial cases in history. The case was mainly the issue between Religion .vs. Science and Modernists .vs. Fundamentalists. Modernists said the theory of evolution was not related to religion and Fundamentalists said God was responsible for evolution and it was revealed in the Bible. The eight day trial concluded with John Scopes was found guilty and fined 100 $ which would be equivalent to about 1,300 $ in today’s economy. However, the court did later overturn the John Scope’s conviction based on a technicality. The Butler Act, which was violated at the time by Scopes, remained until its repeal by the state in 1967.

It raised awareness back then and it’s still been raising awareness now. Especially here in the United States, the court system has changed a lot since Harper wrote To Kill A Mockingbird, giving everyone (including the defendants) fair treatment, equal rights, and more non-bias jury. It was especially a big deal during the time when it was published, with it being cited as a factor in the success in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Civil Rights Leader Andrew Young commented that part of the book's effectiveness is that it "inspires hope in the midst of chaos and confusion" and by using racial epithets portrays the reality of the times in which it was set. So despite some criticism of its contents being suitable for schools, there’s no doubt it opened up a lot of minds of the issues that continue to plague our

I chose this topic because it is as relevant today as it was in the 1920s, if not even more relevant. This specific topic discusses the Scopes Trial and evolution, but the theme is a broader topic we see discussed today: the battle between legislation/science and religion, and the separation of church and state. Such a theme is present today in topics such as reproductive rights and same-sex marriage. This topic was important in the 1920s because it was the beginning of the mindset among a large amount Americans that questioned the importance of separation of church and state, and the beginning of a revolution to abandon the traditional schools that included bible studies and similar things and lead educational institutions with