CREEDE HINSHAW: Clarence Darrow is returning to Dayton, Tenn.

This is an article about statues, but it’s not about the cities of New Orleans or Richmond removing their Confederate statues.

Perhaps you have read about a new statue of Clarence Darrow, the humanist lawyer who famously contended with William Jennings Bryan in the “monkey trial” in Dayton, Tenn., in 1925. At that trial, Dayton teacher John Scopes was accused of violating Tennessee law by teaching evolution.

Bryan, a three-time presidential candidate and famous Christian, advocated for the prosecution while Darrow defended the teacher.

The trial captivated the nation and Dayton, Tenn., took on a carnival atmosphere. Although Bryan eventually prevailed in court, the judge sentenced Scopes to a very light fine. Bryan, who met his match in Clarence Darrow, died in Dayton just a few days later.

There has long been a statue of William Jennings Bryan in Dayton. Now, Darrow, complete with suspenders, will be placed on the north side of Dayton’s courthouse lawn in mid-July, while Bryan’s statue is on the south side of the same courthouse. Dayton, home to fundamentalist Christian Bryan College, will forever be linked with this trial and both famous men will have their pedestal.

As you might guess, the raising of Darrow’s statue has been controversial in some quarters of Dayton from townspeople who oppose the liberalism and freedom of speech advocated by Clarence Darrow.

One of the most ardent opponents of the statue is a 78-year-old June Griffin, a resident of Dayton and a minister in the American Bible Protestant Church. You can find photos and interviews with her online.

Most of the photos I’ve seen show her in a blazing red blouse, white hair framing a very stern, resolute face. She plans to fight this matter to the very end, even suggesting at one point that it might be time for the good people of Dayton to pick up their rifles and settle things like they did back in the Revolutionary War days.

Public space always has the potential to be controversial. The powers that be approved the statue to be erected in Dayton, but that has not resolved this issue for those who feel pressed in by liberalism, gay rights, transgender rights, birth control, etc. For them the Darrow statue is one more brick in the wall of a godless, secular society, and they want no part of this ACLU lawyer’s image desecrating their courthouse lawn.

My guess is that the county commissioners or the city fathers and mothers will eventually prevail in this matter. Darrow’s statue will stand in Dayton, not as a monument to secularism, but a monument completing the tableau of the fight that continues between fundamentalists and modernists today.

I don’t know if Bryan’s statue has been defaced over the years, but I predict that Darrow’s 7-foot representation may not come through this unscathed. Everybody seems to be angry these days and a minor example of this will take place in Tennessee this summer.

Email columnist Creede Hinshaw, a retired Methodist minister, at [email protected].