In 1925 a high school teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, John T. Scopes, was put on trial for teaching evolution, which was prohibited by Tennessee law. Since Scopes clearly violated state law, the judge found him guilty, but the punishment was only a small fine.

The Tennessee law upon which the Scopes Trial was based was not the first antievolution legislation in the United States. That honor goes to Oklahoma, where an antievolution amendment was added to a state law regarding free textbooks in 1923. This law was repealed shortly after the 1925 Scopes Trial.

The Scopes Trial has become the symbol of religious opposition to the teaching of evolution, for several reasons. First, it was the only example of prosecution of an instructor for teaching evolution. Second, because it was widely viewed as the flashpoint of the struggle between God and secularism, it drew national attention, particularly when two of the most famous lawyers in the country came to Dayton: William Jennings Bryan, to prosecute Scopes, and Clarence Darrow to defend him. Bryan was a famous politician: a former secretary of state under Woodrow Wilson, three-time presidential candidate, and renowned speaker and defender of Christian orthodoxy. Clarence Darrow was just as famous as a lawyer who was willing to work for unpopular defendants. He had just finished defending Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two young men who had murdered another young man, in a trial that gave Darrow national notoriety. The attention that the trial received was enhanced by the reports written by the famous antireligious writer H. L. Mencken. . .

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