James Warren Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was an American preacher, political activist and mass murderer. He led the
Peoples Temple, a
new religious movement
A new religious movement (NRM), also known as alternative spirituality or a new religion, is a religious or spiritual group that has modern origins and is peripheral to its society's dominant religious culture. NRMs can be novel in origin or th ...
, between 1955 and 1978. In what he called "revolutionary suicide", Jones and the members of his inner circle orchestrated a
mass murder–suicide in his remote jungle
commune at
Jonestown
The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, better known by its informal name "Jonestown", was a remote settlement in Guyana established by the Peoples Temple, a U.S.–based cult under the leadership of Jim Jones. Jonestown became internationall ...
,
Guyana, on November 18, 1978. Jones and the events which occurred at Jonestown have had a defining influence on society's perception of
cult
In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal ...
s.
As a child, Jones developed an affinity for
Pentecostalism
Pentecostalism or classical Pentecostalism is a Protestantism, Protestant Charismatic Christianity, Charismatic Christian movement[Independent Assemblies of God
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independen ...]
, attracting his first group of followers while participating in the Pentecostal
Latter Rain movement and the
Healing Revival during the 1950s. Jones's initial popularity arose from his joint campaign appearances with the movements' prominent leaders,
William Branham and
Joseph Mattsson-Boze, and their endorsement of his ministry. Jones founded the organization that would become the Peoples Temple in
Indianapolis in 1955. In 1956, Jones began to be influenced by
Father Divine and the
Peace Mission movement. Jones distinguished himself through
civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life ...
activism, founding the Temple as a fully
integrated congregation, and promoting socialism. In 1964, Jones joined and was ordained a minister by the
Disciples of Christ
The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination in the United States and Canada. The denomination started with the Restoration Movement during the Second Great Awakening, first existing during the 19th ...
; his attraction to the Disciples was largely due to the autonomy and tolerance they granted to differing views within their denomination.
In 1965, Jones moved the Temple to California. The group established its
headquarters in San Francisco, where he became heavily involved in political and charitable activity throughout the 1970s. Jones developed connections with prominent California politicians and was appointed as chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission in 1975. Beginning in the late 1960s, reports of abuse began to surface as Jones became increasingly vocal in his rejection of traditional Christianity and began promoting a form of
communism
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society ...
he called "Apostolic Socialism" and making claims of his own divinity. Jones became progressively more controlling of his followers in Peoples Temple, which at its peak had over 3,000 members. Jones's followers engaged in a communal lifestyle in which many turned over all their income and property to Jones and Peoples Temple who directed all aspects of community life.
Following a period of negative media publicity and reports of abuse at Peoples Temple, Jones ordered the construction of the Jonestown commune in Guyana in 1974 and convinced or compelled many of his followers to live there with him. Jones claimed that he was constructing a socialist paradise free from the oppression of the United States government. By 1978, reports surfaced of human rights abuses and accusations that people were being held in Jonestown against their will. U.S. Representative
Leo Ryan led a delegation to the commune in November of that year to investigate these reports. While boarding a return flight with some former Temple members who wished to leave, Ryan and four others were murdered by gunmen from Jonestown. Jones then ordered a mass murder-suicide that claimed the lives of 909 commune members, 304 of them children; almost all of the members died by drinking
Flavor Aid
Flavor Aid is a non-carbonated soft drink beverage made by The Jel Sert Company in West Chicago, Illinois. It was introduced in 1929. It is sold throughout the United States as an unsweetened, powdered concentrate drink mix, similar to Kool-Aid ...
laced with
cyanide
Cyanide is a naturally occurring, rapidly acting, toxic chemical that can exist in many different forms.
In chemistry, a cyanide () is a chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of ...
.
Early life
James Warren Jones was born on May 13, 1931, in the rural community of
Crete, Indiana
Crete is a small unincorporated community in Greensfork Township, Randolph County, in the U.S. state of Indiana.
History
A post office was established at Crete in 1882, and remained in operation until it was discontinued in 1918. The communit ...
, to James Thurman Jones and Lynetta Putnam. Jones's father was a disabled
World WarI veteran who suffered from severe breathing difficulties due to injuries which he sustained in a
chemical weapons
A chemical weapon (CW) is a specialized munition that uses chemicals formulated to inflict death or harm on humans. According to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), this can be any chemical compound intended as ...
attack.
His father's illness led to financial difficulties. In 1934, the Jones family was evicted from their home for failure to make mortgage payments. Their relatives purchased a
shack
A shack (or, in some areas, shanty) is a type of small shelter or dwelling, often primitive or rudimentary in design and construction.
Unlike huts, shacks are constructed by hand using available materials; however, whereas huts are usually r ...
for them to live in at the nearby town of
Lynn
Lynn may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Lynn (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters
* Lynn (surname)
* The Lynns, a 1990s American country music duo consisting of twin sisters Peggy and Patsy Lynn
* Lynn ( ...
. The new home, where Jones grew up, lacked plumbing and electricity. In Lynn, the family attempted to earn an income through farming, but again met with failure when Jones's father's health further deteriorated. The family often lacked adequate food and relied on financial support from their extended family. They sometimes resorted to foraging in the nearby forest and fields to supplement their diet.
According to multiple Jones biographers, his mother had "no natural maternal instincts" and as a result, she frequently neglected her son. When Jones started to attend school, his extended family threatened to cut off their financial assistance unless his mother got a job, forcing her to work outside her home. Meanwhile, Jones's father was hospitalized multiple times due to his illness. As a result, Jones's parents were frequently absent during his childhood. Jones was left to be cared for by neighbors and relatives.
Early religious and political influences
Myrtle Kennedy, the wife of the
Nazarene Church's pastor, developed a special attachment to Jones. She gave Jones a
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts o ...
and encouraged him to study it, teaching him to follow the
holiness code
The Holiness code is used in biblical criticism to refer to Leviticus chapters 17–26, and sometimes passages in other books of the Pentateuch, especially Numbers and Exodus. It is so called due to its highly repeated use of the word ''holy' ...
of the Nazarene Church. As Jones grew older, he attended services at most of the churches in Lynn, often going to multiple churches each week, and he was baptized in several of them. Jones developed a desire to become a preacher as a child and he began to practice preaching in private. His mother claimed that she was disturbed when she caught him imitating the pastor of the local
Apostolic Pentecostal Church and she unsuccessfully attempted to prevent him from attending the church's services.
Although they had sympathy for Jones because of his poor circumstances, his neighbors reported that he was an unusual child who was obsessed with
religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural ...
and death.
One Jones biographer suggested that he developed his unusual interests because he found it difficult to make friends. Although his strange religious practices stood out the most to his neighbors, they reported that he misbehaved in more serious ways. He frequently stole candy from merchants in the town; his mother was required to pay for his thefts. Jones regularly used offensive
profanity
Profanity, also known as cursing, cussing, swearing, bad language, foul language, obscenities, expletives or vulgarism, is a socially offensive use of language. Accordingly, profanity is language use that is sometimes deemed impolite, ru ...
, commonly greeting his friends and neighbors by saying, "Good morning, you son of a bitch" or, "Hello, you dirty bastard".
Jones developed an intense interest in religion and social doctrines. He became a voracious reader who studied
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
,
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
,
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
,
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong pronounced ; also Romanization of Chinese, romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the List of national founde ...
and
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, Anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure ...
. He spent hours in the community library, and he brought books home so he could read them in the evenings. Although he studied different political systems, Jones did not espouse any radical political views in his youth.
Commenting on his childhood, Jones stated, Tim Reiterman, a biographer of Jones, wrote that Jones's attraction to religion was strongly influenced by his desire for a family.
Education and marriage
In high school, Jones continued to stand out from his peers. He almost always carried his Bible with him. His religious views alienated him from other young people. He frequently confronted them for drinking beer, smoking, and dancing. While he was attending a baseball game in
Richmond, Indiana
Richmond is a city in eastern Wayne County, Indiana. Bordering the state of Ohio, it is the county seat of Wayne County and is part of the Dayton, OH Metropolitan Statistical Area In the 2010 census, the city had a population of 36,812. Situ ...
, Jones was bothered by the treatment of
African Americans who attended the game. The events at that baseball game brought
discrimination against African Americans
Racism in the United States comprises negative attitudes and views on race or ethnicity which are related to each other, are held by various people and groups in the United States, and have been reflected in discriminatory laws, practices and ...
to Jones's attention and influenced his strong aversion to
racism
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
.
Jones's parents
separated in 1945 and they eventually divorced. Jones moved to Richmond, Indiana with his mother, where he graduated from
Richmond High School in December 1948. Jones and his mother lost the financial support of their relatives following the divorce. To support himself, Jones began working as an orderly at Richmond's
Reid Hospital in 1946. Jones was well-regarded by the senior management, but staff members later recalled that Jones exhibited disturbing behavior towards some patients and coworkers. Jones began dating a nurse-in-training named Marceline Baldwin while he was working at Reid Hospital.
Jones moved to
Bloomington, Indiana
Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County in the central region of the U.S. state of Indiana. It is the seventh-largest city in Indiana and the fourth-largest outside the Indianapolis metropolitan area. According to the Mo ...
in November 1948, where he attended
Indiana University Bloomington
Indiana University Bloomington (IU Bloomington, Indiana University, IU, or simply Indiana) is a public research university in Bloomington, Indiana. It is the flagship campus of Indiana University and, with over 40,000 students, its largest camp ...
with the intention of becoming a doctor, but changed his mind shortly thereafter. During his time at University, Jones was impressed by a speech which
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt () (October 11, 1884November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four ...
delivered about the plight of African-Americans, and he began to espouse support for
communism
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society ...
and other radical political views for the first time.
Jones and Marceline Baldwin continued their relationship while he attended college, and the couple married on June 12, 1949. Their first home was in Bloomington, where Marceline worked in a nearby hospital while Jones attended college. Marceline was
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related Christian denomination, denominations of Protestantism, Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John W ...
, and she and Jones immediately fell into arguments about church. Jones's strong opposition to the Methodist church's racial segregationist practices was an early strain on their marriage. Jones insisted on attending Bloomington's Full Gospel Tabernacle, but eventually compromised and began attending a local Methodist church on most Sunday mornings. Despite attending churches every week, Jones privately pressed his wife to accept
atheism
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...
.
After attending Indiana University for two years, the couple relocated to
Indianapolis in 1951. Jones took night classes at
Butler University
Butler University is a private university in Indianapolis, Indiana. Founded in 1855 and named after founder Ovid Butler, the university has over 60 major academic fields of study in six colleges: the Lacy School of Business, College of Communi ...
to continue his education, finally earning a degree in secondary education in 1961.
In 1951, the 20-year-old Jones began attending gatherings of the
Communist Party USA
The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...
in Indianapolis. Jones and his family faced harassment from government authorities for their affiliation with the Communist Party during 1952. In one event, Jones's mother was harassed by
FBI agents in front of her co-workers because she had attended a communist meeting with her son.
[.] Jones became frustrated with the
persecution
Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group. The most common forms are religious persecution, racism, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these term ...
of communists in the U.S.
Reflecting back on his participation in the Communist Party, Jones said that he asked himself, "How can I demonstrate my
Marxism
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialec ...
? The thought was, infiltrate the church."
Peoples Temple
Beginnings in Indianapolis
In early 1952, Jones announced to his wife and her family that he would become a Methodist minister, believing the church was ready to "put real socialism into practice." Jones was surprised when a
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related Christian denomination, denominations of Protestantism, Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John W ...
district superintendent helped him get a start in the church, even though he knew Jones to be a communist.
In the summer of 1952, Jones was hired as student pastor to the children at the Sommerset Southside Methodist Church, where he launched a project to create a playground that would be open to children of all races. Jones continued to visit and speak at Pentecostal churches while serving as Methodist student pastor. In early 1954 Jones was dismissed from his position in the Methodist Church, ostensibly for stealing church funds, though he later claimed he left the church because its leaders forbade him from
integrating blacks into his congregation.
Around this time in 1953, Jones visited a Pentecostal
Latter Rain convention in
Columbus, Indiana
Columbus is a city in and the county seat of Bartholomew County, Indiana, United States. The population was 50,474 at the 2020 census. The relatively small city has provided a unique place for noted Modern architecture and public art, commissi ...
, where a woman prophesied that Jones was a prophet with a great ministry. Jones was surprised by the endorsement, but gladly accepted the call to preach and rose to the podium to deliver a message to the crowd. Pentecostalism was in the midst of the
Healing Revival and Latter Rain movements during the 1950s.
Believing that the racially integrated and rapidly growing Latter Rain movement offered him a greater opportunity to become a preacher, Jones successfully convinced his wife to leave the Methodist church and join the Pentecostals. In 1953, Jones began attending and preaching at the Laurel Street Tabernacle in Indianapolis, a Pentecostal
Assemblies of God
The Assemblies of God (AG), officially the World Assemblies of God Fellowship, is a group of over 144 autonomous self-governing national groupings of churches that together form the world's largest Pentecostal denomination."Assemblies of God". ...
church. Jones held healing revivals there until 1955 and began to travel and speak at other churches in the Latter Rain movement. He was a guest speaker at a 1953 convention in
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...
.
The Assemblies of God was strongly opposed to the Latter Rain movement. In 1955, they assigned a new pastor to the Laurel Street Tabernacle who enforced their denominational ban on healing revivals. This led Jones to leave and establish Wings of Healing, a new church that would later be renamed Peoples Temple. Jones's new church attracted only twenty members who had come with him from the Laurel Street Tabernacle and was not able to financially support his vision. Jones saw a need for publicity, and began seeking a way to popularize his ministry and recruit members.
Latter Rain movement
Jones began to closely associate with the
Independent Assemblies of God
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independen ...
(IAoG), an international group of churches which embraced the
Latter Rain movement. The IAoG had few requirements for ordaining ministers and they were also accepting of divine healing practices. In June 1955, Jones held his first joint meetings with
William Branham, a healing
evangelist and Pentecostal leader in the global Healing Revival.
In 1956, Jones was
ordained
Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform var ...
as an IAoG minister by
Joseph Mattsson-Boze, a leader in the Latter Rain movement and the IAoG. Jones quickly rose to prominence in the group and organized and hosted a healing convention to take place June 11–15, 1956, in Indianapolis's
Cadle Tabernacle
The Cadle Tabernacle was a church established in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1921 by its founder, E. Howard Cadle. Named in honor of Cadle's mother, Loretta "Etta" Cadle, the building served as a center for evangelical programs and broadcasts on th ...
. Needing a well-known figure to draw crowds, he arranged to share the pulpit again with Branham.
Branham was known to tell attendees their name, address, and why they came for prayer, before pronouncing them healed. Jones was intrigued by Branham's methods and began performing the same feats. Jones and Branham's meetings were very successful and attracted an audience of 11,000 at their first joint campaign. At the convention, Branham issued a prophetic endorsement of Jones and his ministry, saying that God used the convention to send forth a new great ministry.
Many attendees believed Jones's performance indicated that he possessed a
supernatural gift, and coupled with Branham's endorsement, it led to rapid growth of Peoples Temple. Jones was particularly effective at recruitment among the African American attendees at the conventions.
According to a newspaper report, regular attendance at Peoples Temple swelled to 1,000 thanks to the publicity Branham provided to Jones and Peoples Temple.
Following the convention, Jones renamed his church the "Peoples Temple Christian Church Full Gospel" to associate it with
Full Gospel The term Full Gospel or Fourfold Gospel is a theological doctrine used by some evangelical denominations that summarizes the Gospel in four aspects, namely salvation, sanctification, divine healing and second coming of Christ.
Doctrine
This term ...
Pentecostalism; the name was later shortened to the Peoples Temple.
Jones participated in a series of multi-state revival campaigns with Branham in the second half of the 1950s. Jones claimed to be a follower and promoter of Branham's "Message" during the period.
Peoples Temple hosted a second international Pentecostal convention in 1957 which was again headlined by Branham. Through the conventions and with the support of Branham and Mattsson-Boze, Jones secured connections throughout the Latter Rain movement.
Jones adopted one of the Latter Rain's key doctrines which he continued to promote for the rest of his life: the
Manifested Sons of God. William Branham and the Latter Rain movement promoted the belief that individuals could become manifestations of God with supernatural gifts and superhuman abilities. They believed that such a manifestation signaled the
second coming of Christ
The Second Coming (sometimes called the Second Advent or the Parousia) is a Christian (as well as Islamic and Baha'i) belief that Jesus will return again after his ascension to heaven about two thousand years ago. The idea is based on messia ...
, and that the people endowed with these special gifts would usher in a
millennial age
Millennialism (from millennium, Latin for "a thousand years") or chiliasm (from the Greek equivalent) is a belief advanced by some religious denominations that a Golden Age or Paradise will occur on Earth prior to the final judgment and future ...
of heaven on earth. Jones was fascinated with the idea, and adapted it to promote his own utopian ideas and eventually the idea that he was himself a manifestation of God. By the late 1960s, Jones came to teach he was a manifestation of "Christ the Revolution".
Branham was a major influence on Jones who subsequently adopted elements of Branham's methods, doctrines, and style. Like Branham, Jones would later claim to be a return of
Elijah the Prophet, the voice of God, a manifestation of Christ, and promote the belief that the end of the world was imminent.
Jones learned some of his most successful recruitment tactics from Branham. Jones eventually separated from the Latter Rain movement following a bitter disagreement with Branham in which Jones prophesied Branham's death. Their disagreement was possibly related to Branham's
racial teachings or Branham's increasingly vocal opposition to communism.
Peace Mission Movement
Through the Latter Rain movement, Jones became aware of
Father Divine, an African American spiritual leader of the
International Peace Mission movement who was often derided by Pentecostal ministers for his claims to divinity. In 1956, Jones made his first visit to investigate
Father Divine's Peace Mission in Philadelphia. Jones was careful to explain that his visit to the Peace Mission was so he could "give an authentic, unbiased, and objective statement" about its activities to his fellow Pentecostal ministers.
Divine served as another important influence on the development of Jones's ministry. While publicly disavowing many of Father Divine's teachings, Jones actually began to promote Divine's teachings on communal living and gradually implemented many of the outreach practices he witnessed at the Peace Mission, including setting up a soup kitchen and providing free groceries and clothing to people in need.
Jones made a second visit to Father Divine in 1958 to learn more about his practices. Jones bragged to his congregation that he would like to be the successor of Father Divine and made many comparisons between their two ministries. Jones began progressively implementing the disciplinary practices he learned from Father Divine which increasingly took control over the lives of members of Peoples Temple.
Disciples of Christ
As Jones gradually separated from Pentecostalism and the Latter Rain movement, he sought an organization that would be open to all of his beliefs. In 1960, Peoples Temple joined the
Disciples of Christ
The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination in the United States and Canada. The denomination started with the Restoration Movement during the Second Great Awakening, first existing during the 19th ...
denomination, whose headquarters was nearby in Indianapolis.
Archie Ijames
Archie Ijames (September 1, 1913 – May 30, 1993) was an American Christian minister and assistant pastor of Jim Jones' Peoples Temple.
Born in Davie County, North Carolina, Ijames was the son of a sharecropper descended from former slaves. He be ...
assured Jones that the organization would tolerate his political beliefs, and Jones was finally ordained by
Disciples of Christ
The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is a mainline Protestant Christian denomination in the United States and Canada. The denomination started with the Restoration Movement during the Second Great Awakening, first existing during the 19th ...
in 1964.
Jones was ordained as a Disciples minister at a time when the requirements for ordination varied greatly and Disciples membership was open to any church. In both 1974 and 1977 the Disciples leadership received allegations of abuse at Peoples Temple. They conducted investigations at the time, but they found no evidence of wrongdoing. Disciples of Christ found Peoples Temple to be "an exemplary Christian ministry overcoming human differences and dedicated to human services." Peoples Temple contributed $1.1 million ($ in 2020 dollars) to the denomination between 1966 and 1977. Jones and Peoples Temple remained part of the Disciples until the Jonestown massacre.
Racial integration
In 1960,
Indianapolis Mayor
The Mayor of Indianapolis is the head of the executive branch of the consolidated city-county government of Indianapolis and Marion County. As the chief executive, the mayor has the duty to oversee city-county government's various departments, a ...
Charles Boswell appointed Jones director of the local
human rights commission
A human rights commission, also known as a human relations commission, is a body set up to investigate, promote or protect human rights.
The term may refer to international, national or subnational bodies set up for this purpose, such as nationa ...
. Jones ignored Boswell's advice to keep a low profile, however, and he used the position to secure new outlets for his views on local radio and television programs. The mayor and other commissioners asked him to curtail his public actions, but he refused. Jones was wildly cheered at a meeting of the
NAACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...
and the
Urban League
The National Urban League, formerly known as the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, is a nonpartisan historic civil rights organization based in New York City that advocates on behalf of economic and social justice for African Am ...
when he encouraged his audience to be more
militant
The English word ''militant'' is both an adjective and a noun, and it is generally used to mean vigorously active, combative and/or aggressive, especially in support of a cause, as in "militant reformers". It comes from the 15th century Latin " ...
, capping his speech with, "Let my people go!".
During his time as commission director, Jones helped to racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the
Indianapolis Police Department, a theater, and an amusement park, and the
Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital
Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital is a hospital part of Indiana University Health, located in Indianapolis, state of Indiana, United States. It is the largest hospital in the state of Indiana and one of only four regional Level I Trau ...
. When
swastika
The swastika (卐 or 卍) is an ancient religious and cultural symbol, predominantly in various Eurasian, as well as some African and American cultures, now also widely recognized for its appropriation by the Nazi Party and by neo-Nazis. I ...
s were painted on the homes of two black families, Jones walked through the neighborhood, comforted the local black community and counseled white families not to move.
Jones set up
sting operation
In law enforcement, a sting operation is a deceptive operation designed to catch a person attempting to commit a crime. A typical sting will have an undercover law enforcement officer, detective, or co-operative member of the public play a role ...
s in order to catch restaurants which refused to serve black customers and wrote to
American Nazi Party
The American Nazi Party (ANP) is an American far-right and neo-Nazi political party founded by George Lincoln Rockwell and headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. The organization was originally named the World Union of Free Enterprise Nationa ...
leaders and passed their responses to the media. In 1961, Jones suffered a collapse and was hospitalized. The hospital accidentally placed Jones in its black ward, and he refused to be moved; he began to make the beds and empty the
bedpan
A bedpan or bed pan is a receptacle used for the toileting of a bedridden patient in a health care facility, and is usually made of metal, glass, ceramic, or plastic. A bedpan can be used for both urinary and fecal discharge. Many diseases ca ...
s of black patients. Political pressures which resulted from Jones's actions caused hospital officials to
desegregate the wards.
In Indiana, Jones was criticized for his integrationist views. Peoples Temple became a target of white supremacists. Among several incidents, a swastika was placed on the Temple, a stick of
dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones's house after a threatening phone call. Nevertheless, the publicity which was generated by Jones's activities attracted a larger congregation. By the end of 1961, Indianapolis was a far more racially integrated city, and "Jim Jones was almost entirely responsible."
"Rainbow Family"
Jones and his wife adopted several non-white children. Jones referred to his household as a "rainbow family", and stated: "Integration is a more personal thing with me now. It's a question of my son's future."
He also portrayed the Temple as a "rainbow family". In 1954 the Joneses adopted their first child, Agnes, who was part
Native American.
In 1959, they adopted three
Korean-American
Korean Americans are Americans of Korean ancestry (mostly from South Korea). In 2015, the Korean-American community constituted about 0.56% of the United States population, or about 1.82 million people, and was the fifth-largest Asian America ...
children named Lew, Stephanie, and Suzanne,
and encouraged Temple members to adopt orphans from war-ravaged Korea. Stephanie Jones died at age five in a car accident in May 1959.
In June 1959, Jones and his wife had their only biological child, naming him Stephan Gandhi. In 1961, they became the first white couple in Indiana to adopt a black child, naming him Jim Jones Jr. (or James W. Jones Jr.). They adopted a white son, originally named Timothy Glen Tupper (shortened to Tim), whose birth mother was a member of the Temple.
Jones fathered Jim Jon (Kimo) with Temple member
Carolyn Layton.
Relocating Peoples Temple
In 1961, Jones warned his congregation that he had received visions of a nuclear attack that would devastate Indianapolis. His wife confided to her friends that he was becoming increasingly paranoid and fearful. Like other followers of William Branham who moved to South America during the 1960s, Jones may have been influenced by Branham's 1961 prophecy concerning the destruction of the United States in a nuclear war. Jones began to look for a way to escape the destruction he believed was imminent. In January 1962 he read an ''
Esquire
Esquire (, ; abbreviated Esq.) is usually a courtesy title.
In the United Kingdom, ''esquire'' historically was a title of respect accorded to men of higher social rank, particularly members of the landed gentry above the rank of gentleman ...
'' magazine article that purported South America to be the safest place to reside to escape any impending nuclear war. Jones decided to travel to South America to scout for a site to relocate Peoples Temple.
Jones made a stop in Georgetown, Guyana on his way to Brazil. Jones held revival meetings in Guyana, which was an english-speaking
British colony
The British Overseas Territories (BOTs), also known as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs), are fourteen territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom. They are the last remnants of the former ...
. Continuing to Brazil, Jones's family rented a modest three-bedroom home in
Belo Horizonte. Jones studied the local economy and receptiveness of racial minorities to his message, but found language to be a barrier. Careful not to portray himself as a communist, he spoke of an
apostolic communal lifestyle rather than Marxism. The family moved to
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of the same name, Brazil's List of Brazilian states by population, third-most populous state, and the List of largest citi ...
in mid-1963, where they worked with the poor in the ''
favela
Favela () is an umbrella name for several types of working-class neighborhoods in Brazil. The term was first used in the Providência neighborhood in the center of Rio de Janeiro in the late 19th century, which was built by soldiers who had ...
s''.
Unable to find a location he deemed suitable for Peoples Temple, Jones became plagued by guilt for abandoning the civil rights struggle in Indiana. During the year of his absence, regular attendance at Peoples Temple declined to less than 100. Jones demanded the Peoples Temple send all its revenue to him in South America to support his efforts and the church went into debt to support his mission. In late 1963, Archie Ijames sent word that the Temple was about to collapse, and threatened to resign if Jones did not soon return. Jones reluctantly returned to Indiana.
Jones arrived in December 1963 to find Peoples Temple bitterly divided. Financial issues and low attendance forced Jones to sell the Peoples Temple church building and relocate to a smaller building nearby. To raise money, Jones briefly returned to the revival circuit, traveling and holding healing campaigns with Latter Rain groups. Possibly to distract Peoples Temple members from the issues facing their group, he told his Indiana congregation that the world would be engulfed by nuclear war on July 15, 1967, leading to a new socialist
Eden
Eden may refer to:
* Garden of Eden, the "garden of God" described in the Book of Genesis
Places and jurisdictions
Canada
* Eden, Ontario
* Eden High School
Middle East
* Eden, Lebanon, a city and former bishopric
* Camp Eden, Iraq
O ...
on Earth, and that the Temple must move to
Northern California
Northern California (colloquially known as NorCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers incl ...
for safety.
During 1964, Jones made multiple trips to California to find a suitable location to relocate. In July 1965, Jones and his followers began moving to their new location in
Redwood Valley, California
Redwood Valley (formerly Basil) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Mendocino County, California, United States. It is located north of Ukiah, the county seat, at an elevation of , and comprises the northern portion of the Ukiah Valley. It is ...
, near the city of
Ukiah. Russell Winberg, Peoples Temple's assistant pastor, strongly resisted Jones's efforts to move the congregation and warned members that Jones was abandoning Christianity. Winberg took over leadership of the Indianapolis church when Jones departed. About 140 of Jones's most loyal followers made the move to California, while the rest remained behind with Winberg.
In California, Jones took a job as a history and government teacher at an adult education school in Ukiah. Jones used his position to recruit for Peoples Temple, teaching his students the benefits of Marxism and lecturing on religion. Jones planted loyal members of Peoples Temple in the classes to help him with recruitment. Jones recruited 50 new members to Peoples Temple in the first few months. In 1967, Jones's followers coaxed another 75 members of the Indianapolis congregation to move to California.
In 1968, the Peoples Temple's California location was admitted to the Disciples of Christ. Jones began to use the denominational connection to promote Peoples Temple as part of the 1.5 million member denomination. He played up famous members of the Disciples, including
Lyndon Johnson and
J. Edgar Hoover, and misrepresented the nature of his position in the denomination. By 1969, Jones increased the membership in Peoples Temple in California to 300.
Apostolic Socialism
Jones developed a theology influenced by the teachings of William Branham and the Latter Rain movement, Father Divine's "divine economic socialism" teachings, and infused with Jones's personal communist worldview. Jones referred to his views as "
Apostolic
Apostolic may refer to:
The Apostles
An Apostle meaning one sent on a mission:
*The Twelve Apostles of Jesus, or something related to them, such as the Church of the Holy Apostles
* Apostolic succession, the doctrine connecting the Christian Chur ...
Socialism". Jones concealed the communist aspects of his teachings until the late 1960s, following the relocation of Peoples Temple to California, where he began to gradually introduce his full beliefs to his followers.
Jones taught that "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment", which he defined as socialism. Jones asserted that traditional Christianity had an incorrect view of God. By the early 1970s, Jones began deriding traditional
Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesu ...
as "fly away religion", rejecting the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts o ...
as being a tool to oppress women and non-whites. Jones referred to traditional Christianity's view of God as a "
Sky God
The sky often has important religious significance. Many religions, both polytheistic and monotheistic, have deities associated with the sky.
The daytime sky deities are typically distinct from the nighttime ones. Stith Thompson's ''Motif- ...
" who was "no God at all". Instead, Jones claimed to be God, and no God beside him.
Jones increasingly promoted the idea of his own divinity, going so far as to tell his congregation that "I am come as God Socialist." Jones carefully avoided claiming divinity outside of Peoples Temple, but he expected to be acknowledged as god-like among his followers. Former Temple member Hue Fortson Jr. quoted him as saying:
What you need to believe in is what you can see.... If you see me as your friend, I'll be your friend. As you see me as your father, I'll be your father, for those of you that don't have a father.... If you see me as your savior, I'll be your savior. If you see me as your God, I'll be your God.
Further attacking traditional Christianity, Jones authored and circulated a tract entitled "The Letter Killeth", criticizing the
King James Bible
The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of K ...
, and dismissing
King James as a slave owner and a
capitalist
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, pri ...
who was responsible for the corrupt translation of scripture. Jones claimed he was sent to share the true meaning of the gospel which had been hidden by corrupt leaders.
Jones rejected even the few required tenets of the Disciples of Christ denomination. Instead of implementing the
sacraments
A sacrament is a Christian rite that is recognized as being particularly important and significant. There are various views on the existence and meaning of such rites. Many Christians consider the sacraments to be a visible symbol of the rea ...
as prescribed by the Disciples, Jones followed Father Divine's
holy communion
The Eucharist (; from Greek , , ), also known as Holy Communion and the Lord's Supper, is a Christian rite that is considered a sacrament in most churches, and as an Ordinance (Christianity), ordinance in others. According to the New Testame ...
practices. Jones created his own
baptism
Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost inv ...
al formula, baptizing his converts "in the holy name of Socialism".
Explaining the nature of sin, Jones stated, "If you're born in capitalist America,
racist
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonis ...
America, fascist America, then you're born in sin. But if you're born in socialism, you're not born in sin."
Drawing on a prophecy in the
Book of Revelation
The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament (and consequently the final book of the Christian Bible). Its title is derived from the first word of the Koine Greek text: , meaning "unveiling" or "revelation". The Book o ...
, he taught that American capitalist culture was irredeemable "
Babylon".
Jones frequently warned his followers of an imminent apocalyptic nuclear race war. He claimed that Nazis and white supremacists would put people of color into concentration camps. Jones said he was a messiah sent to save people. He taught his followers the only way to escape the supposed imminent catastrophe was to accept his teachings, and that after the apocalypse was over, they would emerge to establish a perfect communist society.
Publicly, Jones took care to always couch his socialist views in religious terms, such as "apostolic social justice". "Living the Acts of the Apostles" was his euphemism for living a communal lifestyle. While in the United States, Jones feared the public discovering the full extent of his communist views, which he worried would cost him the support of political leaders and risk Peoples Temple being ejected from the Disciples of Christ. Jones feared losing the church's tax-exempt status and having to report his financial dealings to the
Internal Revenue Service.
Historians are divided over whether Jones actually believed his own teachings, or was just using them to manipulate people. Jeff Guinn said, "It is impossible to know whether Jones gradually came to think he was God's earthly vessel, or whether he came to that convenient conclusion to enhance his authority over his followers." In a 1976 interview, Jones claimed to be an
agnostic
Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. (page 56 in 1967 edition) Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficie ...
and/or an
atheist
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...
.
Marceline admitted in a 1977 ''New York Times'' interview that Jones was trying to promote Marxism in the U.S. by mobilizing people through religion. She said Jones called the Bible a "paper idol" that he wanted to destroy.
Jones taught his followers that the ends justify the means and authorized them to achieve his vision by any means necessary. Outsiders would later point to this aspect of Jones's teachings to allege that he did not genuinely believe in his own teachings, but was "morally bankrupt" and only manipulating religion and other elements of society "to achieve his own selfish ends".
Early reports of abuse
Jones began using illicit drugs after moving to California, which further heightened his paranoia. He increasingly used fear to control and manipulate his followers. Jones frequently warned his followers that there was an enemy seeking to destroy them. The identity of that enemy changed over time from the Ku Klux Klan, to Nazis, to redneck vigilantes, and finally the American government. He frequently prophesied that fires, car accidents, and death or injury would come upon anyone unfaithful to him and his teachings. He constantly pressed his followers to be aggressive in promoting and fulfilling his beliefs.
Jones established a Planning Commission made up of his lieutenants to direct the Peoples Temples' communal lifestyle. Jones, through the Planning Commission, began controlling all aspects of the lives of his followers. Members who joined Peoples Temple turned over all their assets to the church in exchange for free room and board. Members who worked outside of the Temple turned over their income to be used for the benefit of the community. Jones directed groups of his followers to work on various projects for additional income and set up an agricultural operation in
Redwood Valley to grow food. Large community outreach projects were organized, and Temple members were bussed to perform work and community service across the region.
The first known cases of serious abuse in Peoples Temple arose in California as the Planning Commission carried out discipline against members who were not fulfilling Jones's vision or following the rules. Jones's control over the members of Peoples Temple extended to their sex lives and who could be married. Some members were coerced to get
abortion
Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pregn ...
s. Jones began to require sexual favors from the wives of some members of the church, and raped several male members of his congregation.
Members who rebelled against Jones's control were punished with reduced food rations, harsher work schedules, public ridicule and humiliations, and sometimes with physical violence. As the Temple's membership grew, Jones created an armed security group to ensure order among his followers and to guarantee his own personal safety.
Focus on San Francisco
By the end of 1969, Peoples Temple was growing rapidly. Jones's message of economic socialism and racial equality, along with the integrated nature of Peoples Temple, proved attractive, especially to students and racial minorities. By 1970, the Temple opened branches in several cities including
San Fernando,
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
, and
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the wor ...
as Jones began shifting his focus to major cities across California because of limited expansion opportunities in Ukiah. He eventually moved the Temple's headquarters to San Francisco, which was a major center for radical protest movements. By 1973, Peoples Temple reached 2,570 members, with 36,000 subscribers to its fundraising newsletter.
Jones grew the Temple by purposefully targeting other churches. In 1970, Jones and 150 of his followers took a trip to San Francisco's Missionary Baptist Church. Jones held a faith healing revival meeting wherein he impressed the crowd by claiming to heal a man of cancer; his followers later admitted to helping him stage the "healing". At the end of the event, he began attacking and condemning Baptist teachings and encouraging the members to abandon their church and join him.
The event was successful, and Jones recruited about 200 new members for Peoples Temple. In a less successful attempt in 1971, Jones and a large number of his followers visited the tomb and shrine erected for Father Divine shortly after his death. Jones confronted Divine's wife and claimed to be the reincarnation of Father Divine. At a banquet that evening, Jones's followers seized control of the event and Jones addressed Divine's followers, again claiming that he was Father Divine's successor. Divine's wife rose up and accused Jones of being the devil in disguise and demanded he leave. Jones managed to recruit only twelve followers through the event.
Jones became active in San Francisco politics and was able to gain contact with prominent local and state politicians. Thanks to their growing numbers, Jones and Peoples Temple played an instrumental role in
George Moscone
George Richard Moscone (; November 24, 1929 – November 27, 1978) was an American attorney and Democratic politician. He was the 37th mayor of San Francisco, California from January 1976 until his assassination in November 1978. He was known ...
's election as
mayor
In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well as ...
in 1975. Moscone subsequently appointed Jones as the chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission.
Jones hosted local political figures at his San Francisco apartment for discussions. In September 1976,
Assemblyman Willie Brown served as
master of ceremonies at a large testimonial dinner for Jones attended by
Governor
A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...
Jerry Brown
Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. (born April 7, 1938) is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 34th and 39th governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected Secretary of S ...
and
Lieutenant Governor
A lieutenant governor, lieutenant-governor, or vice governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction. Often a lieutenant governor is the deputy, or lieutenant, to or ranked under a governor — a "second-in-comm ...
Mervyn Dymally. At that dinner, Willie Brown touted Jones as "what you should see every day when you look in the mirror" and said he was a combination of
Martin Luther King Jr.,
Angela Davis
Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, philosopher, academic, scholar, and author. She is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A feminist and a Marxist, Davis was a longtime member o ...
,
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theor ...
, and Mao.
Harvey Milk
Harvey Bernard Milk (May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978) was an American politician and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Milk was born and raised in ...
spoke to audiences during political rallies held at the Temple, and he wrote to Jones after one such visit:
Rev Jim, It may take me many a day to come back down from the high that I reach today. I found something dear today. I found a sense of being that makes up for all the hours and energy placed in a fight. I found what you wanted me to find. I shall be back. For I can never leave.
Through his connections with California politicians, Jones was able to establish contacts with key national political figures. Jones and Moscone met privately with vice presidential candidate
Walter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale (January 5, 1928 – April 19, 2021) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 42nd vice president of the United States from 1977 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. A U.S. senator from Minnesot ...
on his campaign plane days before the
1976 election, leading Mondale to publicly praise the Temple.
[
First Lady ]Rosalynn Carter
Eleanor Rosalynn Carter ( ; née Smith; born August 18, 1927) is an American writer and activist who served as First Lady of the United States from 1977 to 1981 as the wife of President Jimmy Carter. For decades, she has been a leading advocate ...
met with Jones on multiple occasions, corresponded with him about Cuba, and spoke with him at the grand opening of the San Francisco headquarters—where he received louder applause than she did. Jones forged alliances with key columnists and others at the ''San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The pap ...
'' and other press outlets that gave Jones favorable press during his early years in California.
Jonestown
Publicity problems
Jones began to receive negative press beginning in October 1971 when reporters covered one of Jones's divine healing services during a visit to his old church in Indianapolis. The news report led to an investigation by the Indiana State Psychology Board into Jones's healing practices in 1972. A doctor involved in the investigation accused Jones of "quackery" and challenged Jones to give tissue samples of the material he claimed fell off people when they were healed of cancer. The investigation caused alarm within the Temple.
Jones had been performing faith healing "miracles" since his joint campaigns with William Branham. "On several occasions his healings were revealed as nothing but a hoax."[ In one incident, Jones drugged Temple member Irene Mason, and while she was unconscious, a cast was put on her arm. When she regained consciousness, she was told she had fallen and broken her arm and taken to the hospital. In a subsequent healing service, Jones removed her cast off in front of the congregation and told them she was healed. In other instances, Jones had someone from his inner circle enter the prayer line for healing of cancer. After being "healed" the person would pretend to cough up their tumor, which was actually a chicken ]gizzard
The gizzard, also referred to as the ventriculus, gastric mill, and gigerium, is an organ found in the digestive tract of some animals, including archosaurs (pterosaurs, crocodiles, alligators, dinosaurs, birds), earthworms, some gastropods, som ...
.
Jones also pretended to have "special revelations" about individuals which revealed supposed hidden details of their lives.[
Jones was fearful that his methods would be exposed by the investigation. In response, Jones announced he was terminating his ministry in Indiana because it was too far from California for him to attend to and downplayed his healing claims to the authorities. The issue only escalated however, and ]Lester Kinsolving
__NOTOC__
Charles Lester Kinsolving, known as Les Kinsolving (December 18, 1927 – December 4, 2018), was an American political talk radio talk show host, host, previously heard on WCBM in Baltimore, Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland. He is known ...
ran a series of articles targeting Jones and Peoples Temple in the ''San Francisco Examiner
The ''San Francisco Examiner'' is a newspaper distributed in and around San Francisco, California, and published since 1863.
Once self-dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies" by then-owner William Randolph Hearst, and flagship of the Hearst Corpora ...
'' in September 1972. The stories reported on Jones's claims of divinity and exposed purported miracles as a hoax.
In 1973, Ross Case, a former follower of Jones, began working with a group in Ukiah to investigate Peoples Temple. They uncovered a staged healing, the abusive treatment of a woman in the church, and evidence that Jones raped a male member of his congregation. Reports of Case's activity reached Jones, who became increasingly paranoid that the authorities were after him. Case reported his findings to the local police, but they took no action.
Shortly after, eight members of Peoples Temple made accusations of abuse against the Planning Commission and Peoples Temple staff members. They accused members of Planning Commission of being homosexuals and questioned their true commitment to socialism, before leaving the Peoples Temple. Jones became convinced he was losing control and needed to relocate Peoples Temple to escape the mounting threats and allegations.
On December 13, 1973, Jones was arrested and charged with lewd conduct for allegedly masturbating in the presence of a male undercover
To go "undercover" (that is, to go on an undercover operation) is to avoid detection by the object of one's observation, and especially to disguise one's own identity (or use an assumed identity) for the purposes of gaining the trust of an ind ...
LAPD
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), officially known as the City of Los Angeles Police Department, is the municipal Police, police department of Los Angeles, California. With 9,974 police officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the thir ...
vice officer in a movie theater restroom near Los Angeles's MacArthur Park
MacArthur Park (originally Westlake Park) is a park dating back to the late 19th century in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles. In the early 1940s, it was renamed after General Douglas MacArthur, and later designated City of Los Angeles H ...
. On December 20, 1973, the charge against Jones was dismissed, though the details of the dismissal are not clear. The court file was sealed, and the judge ordered that records of the arrest be destroyed.
Formation
In the fall of 1973, Jones and the Planning Commission devised a plan to escape from the United States in the event of a government raid, and they began to develop a longer-term plan to relocate Peoples Temple. The group decided on Guyana as a favorable location, citing its recent revolution, socialist government, and the favorable reaction Jones received when he traveled there in 1963. In October, the group voted unanimously to set up an agricultural commune in Guyana. In December, Jones and Ijames traveled to Guyana to find a suitable location.
In a newspaper interview, Jones indicated that he would rather settle his commune in a communist country like China or the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
, and was saddened about his inability to do so. Jones described Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
and Stalin as his heroes, and saw the Soviet Union as an ideal society.
By the summer of 1974, land and supplies were purchased in Guyana. Ijames was put in charge of the project and oversaw the installation of a power generation station, clearance of fields for farming, and the construction of dormitories to prepare for the first settlers. In December 1974, the first group arrived in Guyana to start operating the commune that would become known as Jonestown.
Jones left Ijames to oversee Jonestown while he returned to the United States to continue his efforts to combat the negative press. He was largely unsuccessful and more stories of abuse in Peoples Temple were leaked to the public. In March 1977, Marshall Kilduff published a story in ''New West'' magazine exposing abuses at the Peoples Temple. The article included allegations by Temple defectors of physical
Physical may refer to:
*Physical examination
In a physical examination, medical examination, or clinical examination, a medical practitioner examines a patient for any possible medical signs or symptoms of a medical condition. It generally cons ...
, emotional
Emotions are mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is currently no scientific consensus on a definition. ...
, and sexual abuse
Sexual abuse or sex abuse, also referred to as molestation, is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using force or by taking advantage of another. Molestation often refers to an instance of sexual assa ...
.
The article convinced Jones that it was time to permanently relocate to South America, and he began to compel members of Peoples Temple to make the move with him. Jones promoted the commune as a means to create both a "socialist paradise" and a "sanctuary
A sanctuary, in its original meaning, is a sacred place, such as a shrine. By the use of such places as a haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This secondary use can be categorized into human sanctuary, a s ...
" from the media scrutiny in San Francisco. Jones purported to establish it as a model communist community, adding that the Temple comprised "the purest communists there are". Once they arrived in Jonestown, Jones prevented members from leaving the settlement.
Jonestown had about 50 settlers at the start of 1977 who were expanding the commune, but it was not ready to handle a large influx of settlers. Ijames warned Jones that the facilities could only support 200 people, but Jones believed the need to relocate was urgent and determined to move immediately. In May 1977, Jones and about 600 of his followers arrived in Jonestown; about 400 more followed in the subsequent months. Jones began moving the Temple's financial assets overseas and started to sell off property in the United States. The Peoples Temple had over $10 million ($ in 2020 dollars) in assets at the time. Despite the negative press prior to his departure, Jones was still well respected outside of Peoples Temple for setting up a racially integrated church which helped the disadvantaged; 68% of Jonestown residents were black.
Mounting pressure and waning political support
Among the followers Jones took to Guyana was John Victor Stoen. John's birth certificate listed Timothy Stoen and Grace Stoen as his parents. Jones had a sexual relationship with Grace Stoen, and claimed he was the biological father of John. Grace Stoen left Peoples Temple in 1976, leaving her child behind. Jones ordered the child to be taken to Guyana in February 1977 to avoid a custody dispute with Grace. After Timothy Stoen also left Peoples Temple in June 1977, Jones kept the child at his own home in Jonestown.
In January 1977, Jones travelled to Cuba with Carlton Goodlett in order to establish an import-export trading relation with Cuba for a San Francisco Bay Area company that he had founded. While visiting Goodlett's business contacts and touring schools and other facilities, Jones was annoyed that President Fidel Castro had not consented to see him, and remarked that Castro had to be living better than the people. While in Cuba, Jones visited the residence of Huey Newton in Havana for an hour, and they talked about Newton's family members who had attended the Peoples Temple. They also discussed his desire to return to the United States. Jones commented that Newton only "missed his luxurious apartment and his favorite bars in Oakland".
In the autumn of 1977, Timothy Stoen and other Temple defectors formed a "Concerned Relatives" group because they had family members in Jonestown who were not being permitted to return to the United States. Stoen traveled to Washington, D.C., in January 1978 to visit with State Department
The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nat ...
officials and members of Congress
A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...
, and wrote a white paper
A white paper is a report or guide that informs readers concisely about a complex issue and presents the issuing body's philosophy on the matter. It is meant to help readers understand an issue, solve a problem, or make a decision. A white pape ...
detailing his grievances against Jones and the Temple and to attempt to recover his son. His efforts aroused the curiosity of California Congressman Leo Ryan, who wrote a letter on Stoen's behalf to Guyanese Prime Minister Forbes Burnham
Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham (20 February 1923 – 6 August 1985) was a Guyanese politician and the leader of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana from 1964 until his death in 1985. He served as Prime Minister from 1964 to 1980 and then as its ...
. The Concerned Relatives began a legal battle with the Temple over the custody of Stoen's son.
Most of Jones's political allies broke ties after his departure, though some did not. Willie Brown spoke out against the Temple's purported enemies at a rally that was attended by Harvey Milk and Assemblyman Art Agnos. Mayor Moscone's office issued a press release saying Jones had broken no laws.
On April 11, 1978, the Concerned Relatives distributed a packet of documents, letters, and affidavit
An ( ; Medieval Latin for "he has declared under oath") is a written statement voluntarily made by an ''affiant'' or '' deponent'' under an oath or affirmation which is administered by a person who is authorized to do so by law. Such a statemen ...
s to the Peoples Temple, members of the press, and members of Congress which they titled an "Accusation of Human Rights Violations by Rev. James Warren Jones". In June 1978, escaped Temple member Deborah Layton provided the group with a further affidavit detailing crimes by the Temple and substandard living conditions in Jonestown.
Jones was facing increasing scrutiny in the summer of 1978 when he hired JFK assassination conspiracy theorists Mark Lane and Donald Freed to help make the case of a "grand conspiracy" against the Temple by U.S. intelligence agencies
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. Jones told Lane that he wanted to "pull an Eldridge Cleaver
Leroy Eldridge Cleaver (August 31, 1935 – May 1, 1998) was an American writer and political activist who became an early leader of the Black Panther Party.
In 1968, Cleaver wrote '' Soul on Ice'', a collection of essays that, at the time of i ...
", referring to a fugitive
A fugitive (or runaway) is a person who is fleeing from custody, whether it be from jail, a government arrest, government or non-government questioning, vigilante violence, or outraged private individuals. A fugitive from justice, also kn ...
member of the Black Panthers
The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, Calif ...
who was able to return to the U.S. after rebuilding his reputation.
Jones attempted to negotiate for his commune to resettle in the Soviet Union. In October 1978, Feodor Timofeyev, Soviet consul
Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states th ...
to Guyana, visited Jonestown for two days and gave a speech. Jim Jones stated beforehand, "For many years, we have let our sympathies be quite publicly known, that the United States government was not our mother, but that the Soviet Union was our spiritual motherland." Timofeyev declared Jonestown in "harmony of theory" with "Marx, Engels, Lenin" and the "practical implementation of... some fundamental features of this theory," and personally thanked Jim Jones.
White Nights
Jones's paranoia increased in Jonestown as he became fearful of a government raid on the commune. Concerned the community would not be able to resist an attack, he began holding drills to test their readiness. He called the drills "White Nights". Jones would call "Alert, Alert, Alert" over the community loudspeaker to call the community together in the central pavilion. Armed guards with guns and crossbows surrounded the pavilion.
The community members would remain at the pavilion throughout the drill, in which Jones told them that their community had been surrounded by agents who were about to destroy them. Jones led them in prayers, chanting, and singing to ward off the impending attack. Sometimes he would have his guards hide in the forest and shoot their firearms to simulate an attack. Jones's terrified followers were only told they were participating in a drill when the event was over. One drill, in September 1977, lasted for six days.
The drills served to keep the members of Jonestown fearful of venturing outside of the commune. Following two visits by United States Embassy personnel to check on the situation at Jonestown, and an IRS investigation in early 1978, Jones became increasingly convinced that the attack he feared was imminent. In one 1978 White Night drill, Jones told his followers he was going to distribute poison for everyone to drink in an act of suicide. A batch of fruit punch was served to everyone in the pavilion who sat by weeping and waiting for their death. After some time passed, Jones informed his followers that it was only a drill and there was not any poison in their drink. Through the White Nights, Jones convinced his followers that the Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...
(CIA) was actively working to destroy their community and conditioned them to accept suicide as a means of escape.
The situation at Jonestown was deteriorating in 1978. The community was exhausted and overworked. Most were required to perform manual labor from early morning until evening. Loudspeakers were installed around Jonestown and sermons were played on a constant loop for the entire community to listen to. Jones began to propagate his belief in what he termed "Translation" once his followers settled in Jonestown, claiming that he and his followers would all die and live blissfully together in the afterlife. Meals were meager and workers were often hungry. After spending all day working, the community gathered each evening at the central pavilion to listen to Jones preach. His sermons generally lasted for several hours; most of the community was sleep deprived.
The majority of the community members were minors or the elderly, and the fewer people of working age found it difficult to keep up with the workload required to support the community. Healthcare, education, and food rations were all in limited supply and the situation was worsening. Jones's orders were increasingly erratic. He was seen staggering and urinating in public, but this was due to prostatitis for a short time towards the end of Jonestown in late October 1978, not the entirety of Jonestown. He found it difficult to walk without assistance around this time, but it cleared up by Leo Ryan's visit.
Murder of Congressman Ryan
In November 1978, Congressman Ryan led a fact-finding mission to Jonestown to investigate allegations of human-rights abuses. His delegation
Delegation is the assignment of authority to another person (normally from a manager to a subordinate) to carry out specific activities. It is the process of distributing and entrusting work to another person,Schermerhorn, J., Davidson, P., Poole ...
included relatives of Temple members, an NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters ...
camera crew, and reporters for several newspapers. The group arrived in the Guyanese capital of Georgetown on November 15.
Two days later, they traveled by airplane to Port Kaituma, then were transported to Jonestown. Jones hosted a reception for the delegation that evening at the central pavilion in Jonestown, during which Temple member Vernon Gosney passed a note meant for Ryan to NBC reporter Don Harris, requesting assistance for himself and another Temple member, Monica Bagby, in leaving the settlement. Tensions began to rise as news spread through the community that some members were attempting to leave. Ryan's delegation left hurriedly the afternoon of November 18 after Ryan narrowly avoided being stabbed by Temple member Don Sly. Ryan and his delegation managed to take along fifteen Temple members who expressed a desire to leave, and Jones made no attempt to prevent their departure at that time.
As members of Ryan's delegation boarded two planes at the Port Kaituma airstrip
An aerodrome (Commonwealth English) or airdrome (American English) is a location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve air cargo, passengers, or neither, and regardless of whether it is for publ ...
, Jonestown's Red Brigade of armed guards arrived and began shooting at them. The gunmen killed Ryan and four others near a Guyana Airways Twin Otter
The de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter is a Canadian STOL (Short Takeoff and Landing) utility aircraft developed by de Havilland Canada, which produced the aircraft from 1965 to 1988; Viking Air purchased the type certificate, then resta ...
aircraft. At the same time, one of the supposed defectors, Larry Layton, drew a weapon and began firing on members of the party inside the other plane, a Cessna
Cessna () is an American brand of general aviation aircraft owned by Textron Aviation since 2014, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. Originally, it was a brand of the Cessna Aircraft Company, an American general aviation aircraft manufacturi ...
, which included Gosney and Bagby. NBC cameraman Bob Brown was able to capture footage of the first few seconds of the shooting at the Otter, just before he himself was killed by the gunmen.
The five killed at the airstrip were Ryan, Harris, Brown, ''San Francisco Examiner
The ''San Francisco Examiner'' is a newspaper distributed in and around San Francisco, California, and published since 1863.
Once self-dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies" by then-owner William Randolph Hearst, and flagship of the Hearst Corpora ...
'' photographer Greg Robinson, and Temple member Patricia Parks. Surviving the attack were future Congresswoman Jackie Speier
Karen Lorraine Jacqueline Speier ( ; born May 14, 1950) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the U.S. representative for , serving in Congress since 2008. She is a member of the Democratic Party. The district, numbered as the 12th Dist ...
, a Ryan staff member; Richard Dwyer, Deputy Chief of Mission from the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown; Bob Flick, an NBC producer; Steve Sung, an NBC sound engineer; Tim Reiterman, an ''Examiner'' reporter; Ron Javers, a ''Chronicle'' reporter; Charles Krause, a ''Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...
'' reporter; and several defecting Temple members. They escaped into the jungle to avoid being killed.
Mass murder-suicide in Jonestown
Later the same day, November 18, 1978, Jones received word that his security guards failed to kill all of Ryan's party. Jones concluded the escapees would soon inform the United States of the attack and they would send the military to seize Jonestown. Jones called the entire community to the central pavilion. He informed the community that Ryan was dead and it was only a matter of time before military commandos descended on their commune and killed them all.
Jones told Temple members that the Soviet Union would not give them passage after the airstrip shooting. Jones said "We can check with Russia to see if they’ll take us in immediately, otherwise we die," asking, "You think Russia’s gonna want us with all this stigma?"
With that reasoning, Jones and several members argued that the group should commit "revolutionary suicide". Jones recorded the entire death ritual on audio tape. Jones had taken large shipments of cyanide
Cyanide is a naturally occurring, rapidly acting, toxic chemical that can exist in many different forms.
In chemistry, a cyanide () is a chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of ...
into Jonestown prior to November 1978, having obtained a jeweler's license that would allow him to purchase the compound in bulk to purportedly clean gold. A drink mixture of Flavor Aid and cyanide was created and handed out to the members of the community to drink. Those who refused to drink were injected with cyanide via syringe.
One Temple member, Christine Miller, dissented toward the beginning of the tape. When members wept and showed signs of dissent, Jones counseled, "Stop these hysterics. This is not the way for people who are socialists
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
or communists
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a ...
to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity." Jones can be heard saying, "Don't be afraid to die", adding that death is "just stepping over into another plane", and adding that death is "a friend". Jones directed that the children be killed first. His wife Marceline apparently protested against killing the children. She was forcibly restrained and then joined the other adults in poisoning herself after the children had died. At the end of the tape, Jones concludes: "We didn't commit suicide; we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world."
Eighty-five members of the community survived the event. Some members slipped into the jungle just as the death ritual began; one man hid in a ditch. One elderly woman hid in her dormitory and slept through the event, awaking to find everyone dead. The Jonestown basketball team was away at a game and survived. Others hid in the dormitories or were away from the community on business when the death ritual unfolded.
The mass murder-suicide left dead 909 inhabitants of Jonestown, 276 of them children, mostly in and around the central pavilion. This resulted in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until September 11, 2001
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
. Another four members residing in Georgetown died. The FBI later recovered the 45-minute audio recording of the mass poisoning in progress. The recording became known as the Death Tape.
Death and aftermath
Jones’s three sons, Stephan, Jim Jr., and Tim Jones were with the Peoples Temple's basketball team in Georgetown at the time of the mass poisoning. During the events at Jonestown, the three brothers drove to the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown to alert the authorities. Guyanese soldiers guarding the embassy refused to let them in after hearing about the shootings at the Port Kaituma airstrip. Later, the three returned to the Temple's headquarters in Georgetown to find the bodies of Sharon Amos and her three children, Liane, Christa and Martin.
The Guyanese military arrived in Jonestown to find the dead. The United States military organized an airlift to bring the remains back to the United States to be buried. Jones was found dead on the stage of the central pavilion; he was resting on a pillow near his deck chair with a gunshot wound to his head. Jones's body was later moved for examination and embalming
Embalming is the art and science of preserving human remains by treating them (in its modern form with chemicals) to forestall decomposition. This is usually done to make the deceased suitable for public or private viewing as part of the funeral ...
. The official autopsy
An autopsy (post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of death or to evaluate any dis ...
conducted by Guyanese coroner Cyril Mootoo in December 1978 confirmed Jones's cause of death as suicide. His son Stephan speculated that his father may have directed someone else to shoot him. The autopsy showed high levels of the barbiturate
Barbiturates are a class of depressant drugs that are chemically derived from barbituric acid. They are effective when used medically as anxiolytics, hypnotics, and anticonvulsants, but have physical and psychological addiction potential as ...
pentobarbital
Pentobarbital (previously known as pentobarbitone in Britain and Australia) is a short-acting barbiturate typically used as a sedative, a preanesthetic, and to control convulsions in emergencies. It can also be used for short-term treatment o ...
in Jones's body, which may have been lethal to humans who had not developed physiological tolerance. Jones's body was cremated
Cremation is a method of final disposition of a dead body through burning.
Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India and Nepal, cremation on an open-air pyre i ...
and his remains were scattered in the Atlantic Ocean.
Guyanese soldiers kept the Jones brothers under house arrest
In justice and law, house arrest (also called home confinement, home detention, or, in modern times, electronic monitoring) is a measure by which a person is confined by the authorities to their residence. Travel is usually restricted, if ...
for five days, interrogating them about the deaths in Georgetown. Stephan was accused of involvement in the deaths and placed in a Guyanese prison for three months. Tim and Johnny Cobb, other members of the Temple basketball team, were taken to Jonestown to identify bodies. After returning to the U.S., Jim Jones Jr. was placed under police surveillance for several months while he lived with his older sister, Suzanne, who had previously turned against the Temple.
Members of Jones's family, including his wife, four children and their spouses, and five grandchildren died in Jonestown. John Victor Stoen died in Jonestown. His body was found just outside of Jones's house.
In a signed note found at the time of her death, Marceline directed that Jones's assets be given to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Peoples Temple secretary had already made arrangements for $7.3 million ($ million in 2020 dollars) in Temple funds to be transferred to the Soviet Embassy in Guyana. Most of the money was held in foreign bank accounts and was transferred electronically, but $680,000 ($ in 2020 dollars) was held in cash and three couriers were hired to transport the cash to the Soviets. The couriers were arrested before reaching their destination and claimed to have hidden most of the money.
Reactions and legacy
The events at Jonestown were immediately subject to extensive media coverage and became known as the Jonestown Massacre. As awareness reached the public, outsiders refused to accept Jones's attempt to blame them for the deaths. Critics and apologists offered a variety of explanations for the events that transpired among Jones's followers. The Soviet Union publicly distanced itself from Jones and what they referred to his "bastardization" of the concept of revolutionary suicide.
American Christian leaders denounced Jones as Satanic and asserted that he and his teachings were in no way connected to traditional Christianity. In an article entitled "On Satan and Jonestown", Billy Graham
William Franklin Graham Jr. (November 7, 1918 – February 21, 2018) was an American evangelist and an ordained Southern Baptist minister who became well known internationally in the late 1940s. He was a prominent evangelical Christi ...
argued that it would be a mistake to identify Jones and his cult as Christian. Graham was joined by other prominent Christian leaders in alleging that Jones was demonically possessed.
Disciples of Christ responded to the Jonestown deaths with significant changes for ministerial ethics and a new process to remove ministers. The Disciples issued a press release disavowing Jones and reported that the community in Jonestown was not affiliated with their denomination. They subsequently expelled Peoples Temple from their denomination.
In the immediate aftermath, rumors arose that surviving members of Peoples Temple in San Francisco were organizing hit squads to target critics and enemies of the church. Law enforcement intervened to protect the media and other figures who were purported to be targeted. Peoples Temple's San Francisco headquarters was besieged by the media, angry protestors, and family members of the dead. Ijames, who returned from Jonestown to take leadership in San Francisco earlier in 1978, was left to address the public. At first he denied that Jones had any connection to the deaths and alleged the events were a plot by enemies of the church. He later came to acknowledge the truth.
The supporters of Peoples Temple, especially politicians, had a difficult time explaining their connections to Jones following the deaths. After a period of reflection, some admitted they had been tricked by Jones. President Carter and the first lady sought to minimize their connections to Jones. San Francisco Mayor George Moscone said he vomited when he heard of the massacre, and called the friends and families of many of the victims to apologize and offer his sympathies.
Investigations into the Jonestown massacre were conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
and the United States Congress. Although individuals and groups had provided tips to the FBI about Peoples Temple, no investigation was made before the massacre. The investigation primarily focused on why authorities, especially the United States State Department, were unaware of the abuses in Jonestown. Although Peoples Temple collapsed shortly after the events of 1978, some individuals continued to follow Jones's teachings during the 1980s.
Since the events of the Jonestown Massacre, a massive amount of literature and study has been produced on the subject. Numerous documentaries, films, books, poetry, music and art have covered or been inspired by the events of Jonestown. Jim Jones and the events at Jonestown had a defining influence on society's perception of cults. The widely known expression " Drinking the Kool-Aid" developed after the events at Jonestown, although the specific beverage used at the massacre was Flavor Aid.
See also
* God complex
A god complex is an unshakable belief characterized by consistently inflated feelings of personal ability, privilege, or infallibility
Infallibility refers to an inability to be wrong. It can be applied within a specific domain, or it can be ...
* List of people claimed to be Jesus
* List of people who have been considered deities
Notes
Footnotes
References
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Further reading
* Bebelaar, Judy and Ron Cabral. "And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of Peoples Temple". Sugartown Publishing, 2018. .
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External links
The Jonestown Institute
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Jim Jones
. ''Encyclopædia Britannica
The ( Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various ...
''. 0022020.
*
Jonestown 30 Years Later
photo gallery published Friday, October 17, 2008.
Jonestown
- FBI records on Jim Jones and Jonestown
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