The Age of Jass

In the 1920s, Americans moved to the city in droves, and a new, diverse generation sparked an era of dizzying social change. It was the Age of Jazz, a time when Black Americans brought a revolutionary new musical style to northern cities. Free-spirited flappers haunted urban nightclubs. And Harlem, New York became the epicenter of a renaissance in Black artistic and political expression.

But rapid changes in the city sparked fear and backlash in the countryside. Rural white Americans vigorously defended traditional religious values, and fundamentalist preachers drew massive audiences. Meanwhile, a resurgent Ku Klux Klan drew millions of new members by targeting not just Black Americans, but also Jews, Catholics, and recent immigrants. 

In 1925, the divide between urban and rural America came to a head in a sleepy town in eastern Tennessee, where the sensational “Scopes Monkey Trial” pitted the forces of science and religion against each other.

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