Earlier this month, the George Barrett Social Justice Program and Office of Culture & Community hosted the Barrett Lecture and Dean’s Lecture on Race and Discrimination at Vanderbilt Law. Brenda Wineapple discussed her new book, Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial that Riveted A Nation. Wineapple showed how, nearly 100 years after The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes (1925), “The Scopes Trial” is still relevant to current socio-political trends and tensions.
The lecture series honors George Barrett (‘57), a civil rights attorney who fought for desegregation in Tennessee’s higher education institutions. Barrett passed away in 2014.
What was the Scopes Trial?
As Wineapple detailed in her talk, the Scopes Trial addressed a Tennessee law known as the Butler Act, which, among other provisions, forbade the teaching of evolution in public schools. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) believed the Butler Act was unconstitutional and sought a plaintiff against it, who turned out to be a 24 year old teacher named John Scopes from Dayton, Tennessee.
The nation’s attention quickly descended on Dayton, with notable names on either side of the trial. William Jennings Bryan, a three-time Presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket and the Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson, argued to keep the Butler Act in place.
“For Bryan, Darwin’s theory of evolution suggested that if humans were descended from monkeys —which Darwin of course had never said— then all humans, white and black no brown, were related and radical categories were illusory,” Wineapple said.
On the other side was Clarence Darrow, serving as Scopes’ lawyer.
“Darrow wanted to fight against what he believed was an attempt to turn the country into a bigoted theocracy,” Wineapple said. “Where only one version of the Bible could be taught, the literalist and fundamentalist one, and where academic freedom would be destroyed. Where science would then be outlawed, where civil rights would be denied, and where prejudice and ignorance would replace learning and liberty.”
In this light, Wineapple showed how the trial was not about just the Butler Act or whether children should be taught evolution in school; it was about how our nation should be governed.
“In the July heat of Tennessee, democracy was on trial,” Wineapple said.
The legacy of the Scopes Trial
Scopes and Darrow lost that trial. The court sided with Bryan and rejected the notion of anything other than a divine creator. Eventually, the law got overturned, but Wineapple emphasized Scopes’ enduring significance in American history. To emphasize its importance, she drew parallels to modern debates on education and social justice.
“The Scopes Trial asks then and now, where the country was headed, where it should be headed, how to make it better and more just in light of prejudice and plain intolerance that also seems part of our heritage,” she said.
She also called for vigilance and education to combat intolerance and uphold democratic values.
“Knowing what happened in Dayton, Tennessee, and the reasons why that happened can make us more vigilant,” Wineapple said. “Sure there are other such intolerant, basically unconstitutional laws now being passed that might be passed affecting education, religion, and race. There is and has been that dark strand in American life, best represented by Bryan at his demagogic worst.”
Watch a recording of Wineapple’s talk below or on the Vanderbilt Law YouTube Channel.