Background
John Thomas was born on August 3, 1900 in Paducah, Kentucky, United States, the son of Thomas Scopes, a railroad machinist, and Mary Alva Brown.
https://www.amazon.com/Center-Storm-Memoirs-John-Scopes/dp/0030603404?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0030603404
John Thomas was born on August 3, 1900 in Paducah, Kentucky, United States, the son of Thomas Scopes, a railroad machinist, and Mary Alva Brown.
John Thomas Scopes attended public schools in Kentucky and Illinois and later the University of Illinois and the University of Kentucky, from which he received a Bachelor of arts in 1924.
He pursued doctoral studies at Chicago, but he ran out of funds in 1932 before completing the degree.
In 1924 Scopes became an athletic coach and teacher of algebra, physics, and chemistry at Central High School in Dayton. Local circumstances conspired in 1925 to make Scopes a symbol of academic freedom: In March the Tennessee legislature enacted a law making it a misdemeanor to teach evolution in the state's public schools. In April, when the principal of his school became ill, Scopes substituted for him in a biology course.
In May the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) advertised that it would pay the expenses of anyone who would test the law's constitutionality. Some of Dayton's worthies, primarily motivated by the hope of benefiting local business, decided to exploit the opportunity. They asked Scopes if evolution was integral to the teaching of biology. When he answered that it was, they pressed him to be the defendant in a test case, which he agreed to do. Scopes was arrested for teaching evolution, and the ACLU committed itself to his defense. The case developed into the nation's biggest news story when William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow volunteered to oppose each other in trying the case. Not only was Bryan a former Democratic presidential nominee and Darrow America's most famous defense lawyer, but they had become the champions, respectively, of fundamentalist Christians and of freethinkers.
He also made important decisions regarding his trial: he accepted as his local defense counsel John R. Neal, an able Tennessee lawyer who was a dedicated defender of intellectual freedom, and he insisted that the ACLU, despite its reluctance, accept Darrow's services, asserting that the trial was going to be a free-for-all fight and would thus demand a roughhouse lawyer.
Even before the trial started on July 10, Dayton had taken on a circus atmosphere as fundamentalists, tourists, and reporters arrived in town. The jury found Scopes guilty on July 21. He was able to take satisfaction in the fact that his defense had clearly enunciated the principles of free inquiry. He contributed to this by telling the court before he was sentenced, "I feel that I have been convicted of violating an unjust statute. I will continue to oppose this law in any way I can. Any other action would be in violation of my ideals of academic freedom - that is, to teach the truth as guaranteed in our Constitution - of personal and religious freedom. "
Judge Raulston fined him $100. The case was not over, for the decision was appealed. The ACLU wanted other counsel to continue the case, but Scopes demanded that Darrow argue the appeal. This was done before the Tennessee Supreme Court in June 1926; the court overturned the sentence on the ground that the jury, not the judge, should have set the fine. Thus, technically Scopes had won, and Tennessee was relieved of having to rule on the merits of the antievolution law.
After his trial, Scopes left teaching. He decided not to exploit his prominence, choosing instead to study geology at the University of Chicago. In 1927 he took a job with the Gulf Oil Company. He worked in Venezuela until 1930, when the company discharged him for refusing to conduct an illegal survey.
In 1933, Scopes took a job with the United Gas Corporation, in whose employ he remained in Texas and Louisiana until he retired in 1964. He did not emerge from his relative obscurity until 1960, when he helped to promote the film version of the play Inherit the Wind, which was based on his trial.
In 1967, Scopes published his autobiography. He died in Shreveport, Louisiana.
John Thomas Scopes was known for Scopes Monkey Trial, violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution in Tennessee schools. He was found guilty and fined $100. Toward the end of his life, Scopes reinforced the idea of academic freedom, of which he had been an outstanding symbol for forty-five years. His famous work: Center of the Storm: Memoirs of John T. Scopes.
Late in his life Scopes was baptized into the Catholic Church.
Scopes believed that neither politics nor religion should dictate what knowledge people should have.
Quotations: "It is the teacher's business to decide what to teach. It is not the business of the federal courts nor of the states. "
In February 1930 Scopes married Mildred Walker. Together they had two sons: John Thomas Jr. and William Clement "Bill".
