The 1920s was a decade of tremendous tension between forces of tradition and modernity. This tension was represented in whole by the Scopes Trial. The Scopes Trial was a court case where the Attorney General of Tennessee charged a high school biology teacher named John Scopes for going against the law of not being able to teach Darwin’s theory of evolution in school. Darwin’s theory of evolution stated that complex forms of life, like human beings, developed from simpler forms of life. Darwin’s modern theory clashed heavily with the fundamentalist, or traditionalist, view in the Bible, where God creates humans. The law of not being able to teach Darwinism in public schools was passed in 1925 by the state of Tennessee. The ACLU, or American …show more content…
He declared that he believed the story in Genesis, that God created Adam and Eve, and that the story of Joshua making the sun stand still was the absolute truth. Clarence Darrow attempted to use science to use to inflict doubt upon William Jennings Bryan’s testimony, but Bryan firmly stated in response, “I accept the Bible absolutely.” John Scopes was found guilty of breaking the Evolution Law passed by the State of Tennessee. The conviction didn’t come as much of a surprise, because everyone knew that Scopes had taught Darwin’s theory in his biology class. John Scopes was fined a mere $100. Clarence Darrow achieved one of his main goals by bringing light and national attention to the issue. The Scopes Trial is known today as a large public confrontation between traditionalism and modernism, and between a literal and a liberal interpretation of the Bible. The Scopes Trial exposed an enormous cultural and religious separation, but it did not heal any of the conflict or answer any of the major questions brought up from the crime. After the Scopes Trial was over, both the traditionalists and the modernists still believed in the truth of its position. To this day, evolution is still a major conflict that continues to be …show more content…
The movement contained literary, artistic, and intellectual, and created a new black cultural identity. The major key people involved in the Harlem Renaissance were Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Rudolf Fisher, Wallace Thurman, Jessie Redmon Fauset, Nella Larsen, Arna Bontemps, Countee Cullen, and Zora Neale Hurston. The precursor of the Harlem Renaissance began with the Great Migration of African-Americans to the North from the South. This occurred during World War I, when factories suffered from a shortage of workers, due to their men being shipped over to Europe. This shortage was seen as an opportunity by the many African Americans living down South. So many of them made their way up North and so began the black movement. Many major American cities began having their black population increase drastically. Those cities being Chicago, Detroit, and most infamously New York. The downtown New York neighborhood of Harlem attracted many of the culturally significant African-Americans. Some of those being W.E.B DuBois, Claude McKay, Count Basie, and Paul Robeson. Many artistic works produced during the Harlem Renaissance didn’t only appeal to blacks, but also appealed to whites. Nothing is more closely connected to the Harlem Renaissance than Jazz. Many musical clubs popped up in New York during the Harlem Renaissance, and none more famous than the beloved Cotton