The Scopes "Monkey" Trial and the Separation of Church and State

Teaching Evolution.

In January 1925 the Tennessee General Assembly enacted a law that forbade the teaching of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution to public-school students in that state. Devout Christians considered Darwin's scientific conclusions on human origins "ungodly." Two months later several opponents of the law met in Robinson's Drugstore in Dayton, Tennessee. They were aware that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was prepared to fund an antievolution "test case," and the group agreed that John T. Scopes, the science teacher in the local high school, would deliberately defy the law in the near future. On 24 April Scopes gave a classroom lecture on Darwin's theory, he was arrested two weeks later.

The Last Great Heresy Trial.

As promised, the ACLU assumed all of Scopes's legal costs, as well as furnishing him legal counsel. Initially, his primary attorneys were Arthur Garfield Hays and Dudley...

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