John Thomas Scopes (August 3, 1900–October 21, 1970), a biology teacher in Dayton, Tennessee at the age of 24, was charged on May 25, 1925 with violating Tennessee's Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution in Tennessee schools. He was urged on by friends to teach the theory of evolution after the Tennessee state legislature passed the act. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced that it would finance a test case challenging its constitutionality if a Tennessee teacher would deliberately violate the statute.

In the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial, he was defended by Clarence Darrow and others from the ACLU, and prosecuted by William Jennings Bryan. The case ended with a guilty verdict, and Scopes was given a $100 fine, which was later overturned on a technicality. After the trial, Scopes went to the University of Chicago, where he received a master's degree in geology. After that he was mainly employed by the oil industry, in both the United States and Venezuela. He died from apoplexy and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

John Scopes wrote an autobiography entitled Center of the Storm: Memoirs of John T. Scopes. (Henry Holt & Company, Inc.—June 1967), ISBN 0030603404