Dr. John R. Neal, Jr. (left) and John T. Scopes at the Scopes Trial in Dayton, Tennessee, 1925. (Wikipedia.)
In conjunction with UT’s commemoration of the centennial of the Scopes “monkey trial” in Dayton, Jack Neely will be talking about one of the most interesting lawyers who ever lived and worked in Knoxville. Although Clarence Darrow is famous for his role as the aggressive defense attorney in the trial, Scopes’ lead defense attorney, who controversially enlisted Darrow, was John R. Neal (1876-1959). A severe eccentric, originally from a town that’s now at the bottom of Watts Bar Lake, Neal was both a former UT professor—fired for insubordination two years before the Scopes trial—and later a significant influence on the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority. He even makes a startling cameo in Cormac McCarthy’s novel Suttree.
Location: UT Law School, 1505 Cumberland Ave
Free program.
