Ninety-two years after the Scopes Trial made front-page news across the country, the famous evolution trial still generates discussion – a fact Dayton, Tenn., will capitalize on this weekend.
The 29th annual Scopes Festival celebrating “The World’s Most Famous Court Trial” kicks off Friday, July 14, at the Rhea County Courthouse, around which the weekend’s activities will be centered.
Friday morning, defense attorney Clarence Darrow will return to the Dayton courthouse in the form of a 7-foot-tall bronze statue that will join the statue of William Jennings Bryan installed on the courthouse lawn in 2005.
Zenos Frudakis works on the 7-foot-tall clay model of Clarence Darrow in his studio in Glenside, Pa. The completed bronze casting will be unveiled Friday morning, July 14, at the Rhea County courthouse.The Darrow statue is the work of Pennsylvania sculptor Zenos Frudakis. It has been cast to match the proportions of the existing Bryan statue.
“Memorializing Darrow alongside the Bryan statue will now balance the views inherent in the trial,” says Frudakis, “and accurately reflect history, as well as symbolically re-create the court drama which captured the attention of the nation.”