One hundred years ago, a substitute teacher named John T. Scopes agreed to help put the tiny town of Dayton, Tennessee, on the map by standing trial for violating a new state law that banned the teaching of evolution. It worked. The trial became the first American courtroom drama to play out in front of a national audience, with journalists, radio broadcasters, and literal trainloads of spectators flooding the town.
A century later, most Americans are likely unfamiliar with the specific details—and even the outcome—of the “trial of the century.” But the trial’s central themes are still very present today. In education, law, and the broader culture, Americans are still torn between myth and fact, superstition and science, dogma and democracy.
This past July, the Center for Inquiry (CFI) and the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) hosted the Scopes Trial Centennial conference in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The event welcomed a wide-ranging, multigenerational (and surprisingly musical) crowd of attendees, educators, activists, journalists, and scholars to reflect on the trial’s legacy and grapple with the future of its central questions.
Friday, July 18: Opening Night
The weekend began with a rollicking opening reception in the Chattanoogan Hotel Ballroom. The evening had a joyful and defiant vibe, as CFI Board Chair Edward Tabash, CFI President and CEO Robyn Blumner, and FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor each took the opportunity to welcome attendees and set the table for the weekend’s program. Comedian Leighann Lord was next, delivering a razor-sharp set that had the room laughing, squirming, and thinking—often all at once. The evening closed with a fantastic selection of 1920s jazz standards performed by vocalist Tahira Clayton, who was accompanied by FFRF Co-President Dan Barker.
Saturday, July 19: The Past Is Prelude
Author Katherine Stewart pulled no punches as she started off the day. The author of Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy, Stewart laid bare the machinery of religious nationalism and the reason behind its unrelenting attacks on science and secularism. “Authoritarian power is incompatible with the scientific pursuit of truth,” she said. “Science depends on facts and on reason. Facts and reason are inimical to dictatorial power. The movement leaders know the truth is their enemy.” Stewart indicated that the Scopes Trial was never just about evolution; it was about who gets to define American identity. And that battle is still raging.
Professor Chris Cameron was next, with a presentation focused on the concept of Black secularism during the Scopes era. Cameron, the author of Black Freethinkers, quoted the legendary civil rights advocate and social commentator W.E.B. DuBois’s description of the event:
The truth is and we know it, Dayton, Tennessee, is America: a great, ignorant, simple-minded land, curiously compounded of brutality, bigotry, religious faith and demagoguery, and capable not simply of mistakes but of persecution, lynching, murder and idiotic blundering, as well as charity, missions, love, and hope. Dayton, Tennessee, is no laughing matter. It is a menace and warning. It is a challenge to Religion, Science and Democracy.
Bertha Vazquez, CFI’s director of education and head of the Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science, discussed the present-day challenges of teaching evolution in public schools. Vazquez, who spent more than thirty years as a classroom educator, explained that even now, a hundred years later, some educators still fear retaliation for following scientific consensus. Her presentation was equal parts realism, hope, and fire, as she proudly displayed data on the great improvement many states have seen in evolution education over the past decade.
FFRF’s Annie Laurie Gaylor presented the Clarence Darrow Award to Pulitzer Prizes–winning historian Ed Larson, author of Summer for the Gods, the indispensable history of the Scopes Trial. Larson’s research reshaped how the trial is understood—not as a defeat for science but rather as a snapshot of America’s enduring struggle with reason. His comments were gracious, grounded, and deeply informed by decades of study.
Brenda Wineapple picked up the historical thread in the afternoon with insights from her new book, Keeping the Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial That Riveted a Nation. She explored the “pressure cooker” cultural landscape of 1925—Prohibition, suffrage, fascism rising in Europe, the Red Scare, school-led Americanization campaigns, anti-immigrant fervor, and White violence against thriving Black communities—and how they fueled the panic over teaching evolution. It was the environment, Wineapple said, that turned a small-town stunt about teaching evolution into a national proxy war for modernity itself.
Richard Katskee, former legal director at Americans United and current director at Duke’s Appellate Litigation Clinic, described the Christian Nationalist mindset of the 1920s: there was God or evolution. You couldn’t have both. He also spoke to the real (and often chilling) legal impact from years of U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have left Establishment Clause jurisprudence hanging by a thread.
The afternoon session concluded with a conversation between CFI’s Robyn Blumner and Judge John Jones III, who issued the landmark ruling in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District “intelligent design” case in 2005. He spoke candidly about the pressures of the case, recalling, “I walked into a courthouse surrounded by satellite trucks. It almost took my breath away.” Judge Jones also described how he initially underestimated the case’s reach and why he now views defending secular government as part of his moral duty. Jones was honored with FFRF’s Defender of the Constitution Award, a tribute to his unwavering commitment to science, secularism, and the First Amendment.
Saturday night was capped off by a performance of John de Lancie’s play about the Dover Trial, which dramatized how intelligent design tried—and failed—to sneak creationism into public school classrooms. The cast of actors was largely made up of local Tennesseans, selected and directed by de Lancie himself in just four days. Two notable exceptions included Eugenie Scott (the founding executive director of the National Center for Science Education) and the actual Judge John Jones III, who took the stage to portray himself for the reading of the verdict. It was a moving and delightful presentation at the end of a truly remarkable day.
Sunday, July 20: Richard Dawkins, John McWhorter, and Rhea County
The Richard Dawkins Award is presented annually to a distinguished individual from the worlds of science, scholarship, education, or entertainment who publicly proclaims the values of secularism and rationalism, upholding scientific truth wherever it may lead. On Sunday morning, Richard Dawkins presented this year’s award to Columbia University linguistics professor and New York Times columnist John McWhorter. McWhorter’s work interrogates the very scaffolding of human thought, from Creole linguistics to questions such as “Did early humans bark before they talked?” The two men had a riveting conversation about language, science communication, and public discourse in a time of mass misinformation.
It was then time for a field trip, as attendees boarded buses for a drive to Dayton, Tennessee, and the Rhea County Courthouse where the Scopes Trail was held. We fanned ourselves with old-school hand fans printed with F.E. Robinson’s Drug Store slogan, “The Hustling Druggist.” Once on site, there were short remarks from Robyn Blumner, Dan Barker, Brenda Wineapple, Richard Dawkins, and sculptor Zenos Frudakis, who created the Clarence Darrow statue that now stands on the courthouse grounds.
Inside the building, it felt like time had folded in on itself. We toured the courtroom with the man who plays Darrow in the annual Scopes Trial reenactment, performed on the very same pine floors on which Scopes himself stood. The sense of history is so palpable it’s almost eerie. Our guide noted that, even though the prosecution and the defense fought viciously from 9 a.m.–4 p.m. each day of the trial, at 4 p.m. they put aside their differences and joined each other at the bar as individuals. It was a strangely hopeful idea, especially in our current moment.
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The fight to promote hard science and secular education in public schools is ongoing. The Scopes Trial Centennial conference was a powerful reminder of how much is at stake and an invigorating call to arms for science and secular advocates.