Rewatch the 1960 Film ‘Inherit the Wind’
Everything old is new again and students are caught in the whirlwind
In 1925, in Tennessee, a high school teacher was put on trial for teaching what he wasn’t supposed to teach. That story is told in the 1960 film “Inherit the Wind.”
In the 1920s, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arkansas, and (oh what a surprise) Florida banned the teaching of the theory of evolution.
The Butler Act in Tennessee made it unlawful to teach any doctrine denying the story of creation as presented in the Bible. A teacher by the name of John Scopes agreed to be the test case to challenge this law. He taught his students about Darwin’s theory of evolution. He was arrested and put on trial. It was a national sensation, captivating the country, carried live on the radio, and dubbed by sardonic reporters as the “Scopes Monkey Trial.”
Are you feeling any sort of deja vu sensation? I’m thinking of laws passed in a multitude of states making it illegal to teach critical race theory. Yes, I know, CRT never actually has been taught outside of graduate schools. However, you may have noticed that the “anti-woke” people are defining “CRT” in any way they like. In fact, the trend kicked off in Florida with the so-called “Stop W.O.K.E Act” will certainly be copied in many states. It…
