The Scopes Trial 90 years on

90 years ago today the famous Scopes ‘monkey’ trial opened in Dayton, Tennessee. John T. Scopes, a local high school teacher, volunteered to be the defendant in a trial sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union to test the Tennessee Butler Act, which outlawed in state-funded schools (including universities) the teaching of "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."

Scopes was defended by the well-known liberal lawyer Clarence Darrow from Illinois who had become famous when he defended Eugene Debs, the leader of the American Railway Union for leading the Pullman Strike of 1894.  The leader of the prosecution was another famous lawyer  - William Jennings Bryan. Bryan was at the trial representing the World Christian Fundamentals Association. He had run unsuccessfully for President three times, and had been Secretary of State 1913-1915.

                          Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan confer during the trial.

 After eleven days John Scopes was found guilty. The Butler Act was not repealed until 1967. Books and plays have been written about this famous trial, and the 1960 movie Inherit the Wind, based on the play by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Lee, dramatized the story, even though names were changed.

In my last blog on June 26^th, following the racist murder of nine people in an African-American church in South Carolina, I made the connection between continuing racism and the denial of evolutionary science which shows that all humans are very closely related; that in fact there is no such thing as different races of humans.

But we in the northern part of the USA must be wary of pointing the finger at the South while our own house is far from perfect. None of us finds it easy to change our ways; but yesterday the state legislature of South Carolina voted to remove the Confederate flag from its Capitol grounds. Now the state legislature of my home state of Massachusetts should look at its own flag which could be interpreted as making a racist statement towards the native people of this land. The appalling treatment of African Americans has rightly had a lot of attention in recent decades. What has not had so much attention and correction is the terrible way the original inhabitants of the Americas have been treated for centuries. So I was heartened to see that yesterday, speaking in Bolivia, Pope Francis said: “I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offenses of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native peoples during the so-called conquest of America.”  Also yesterday, President and Mrs. Obama hosted the first White House Tribal Youth Conference. 

I want to close on this positive note by leaving you with the poem that my mother-in-law Beverly Kitchen (who has just celebrated her 97^th birthday) wrote for her 3^rd grade nature class in a suburb of New York City in 1926, just one year after the Scopes trial.

Star, Sun;

Sun, Spark;

Spark, World;

World, Steam;

Steam, Rain;

Rain, Oceans;

Oceans, Plants;

Plants, Mites;

Mites, Insects:

Insects, Fish;

Fish, Frogs;

Frogs, Snakes;

Snakes, Birds;

Birds, Animals;

Animals, Monkeys;

Monkey, People;

And here we are!

And, here we are indeed. All related parts of a wonderful creation.