James Warren "Jim" Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was the American
founder of the Peoples Temple, which became synonymous with group suicide after the
November 18, 1978 mass
murder-suicide by poison in their isolated agricultural intentional community called Jonestown, located in
Guyana. Over nine hundred people died from cyanide poisoning or
gunshot wounds in the aftermath of Jones ordering his men to kill visiting Congressman Leo Ryan and numerous members of
his entourage.
Early life and founding of Temple
Jones was born in Crete, Indiana to Lynetta Putnam and James Thurman Jones.[1] He graduated from Richmond High School in Richmond,
Indiana. He became a preacher in the 1950s. He obtained a bachelors degree at Butler
University in 1961, and after graduate school at Indiana
University in Bloomington, Indiana, Jim sold pet monkeys door-to-door to
raise the money to fund his own church [2] that would be
named Wings of Deliverance. He later renamed his church the Peoples Temple, which was
located in Indianapolis. He became an ordained minister in 1964 in the mainstream
Christian denomination, Disciples of Christ. The church was distinctive for its equal treatment of
African Americans, and many of them became members of the church. He started a struggle
for racial equality and social justice, which he dubbed apostolic socialism. After leaving Indiana, the Peoples Temple cult built its home in Redwood Valley, California, because Jones believed it was one of the few places in the world
likely to survive a nuclear holocaust. Jones authored a booklet, called "The Letter
Killeth" pointing out what he felt were the contradictions, absurdities, and atrocities in the Bible, but also stating that the Bible contained great truths. He was particularly fascinated with his ability to
manipulate people. Throughout the years, the young Jones perfected his craft and was very skilled in his new found art.[3] He claimed to be an incarnation of Jesus, Akhenaten, Buddha, Lenin, and Father Divine and performed supposed miracle healings to attract new members. Members of Jones' church called Jones "Father" and believed
that their movement was the solution to the problems of society, and many did not distinguish Jones from the movement. The group
gradually moved away from the mainstream.
Jonestown and mass murder-suicide
Brochure of the
Peoples Temple, portraying cult leader Jim Jones as the loving father of
the "Rainbow Family".
-
In the summer of 1977, Jones and most of the 1,000 members of the Peoples Temple moved to Guyana from San Francisco after an investigation into the church for tax evasion had begun. Jones named the closed settlement Jonestown after himself. His intention was to create an agricultural utopia in
the jungle, free from racism and based on socialist principles.
People who had left the organization prior to its move to Guyana told the authorities of brutal beatings, murders and of a mass suicide plan, but they were not believed. In spite of the tax evasion allegations, Jones
was still widely respected for setting up a racially mixed church which helped the disadvantaged. Around 70% of the inhabitants
of Jonestown were black and impoverished. Religious scholar Mary McCormick Maaga argued that Jones' authority waned after he
moved to the isolated commune, because there he was not needed for recruitment and he could not hide his drug addiction from rank
and file members.[4]
In November 1978, U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan led a fact-finding mission to the Jonestown settlement in Guyana after allegations
by relatives in the U.S. of human rights abuses. Ryan's delegation arrived in Jonestown on
November 15 and spent three days interviewing residents. The delegation left hurriedly on
the morning of Saturday November 18, after an attempt was made on Ryan's life by a man armed
with a knife. The attack was thwarted, bringing the visit to an abrupt end. Congressman Ryan and his people succeeded in taking
with them roughly fifteen Peoples Temple members who had expressed a wish to leave. At that time, Jones made no attempt to
prevent their departure. However, Peoples Temple survivors reported that a group from Jonestown left shortly afterwards in a
truck with the intention of stopping the delegation and members from leaving the country alive.
Surviving delegation members later told police that, as they were boarding two planes at the airstrip, the truckload of Jones'
armed guards arrived and began shooting at them, killing Congressman Ryan and five others. At the same time, one of the supposed
defectors, Larry Layton, drew a weapon and began to fire on members of the party. When the gunmen
left, six people were dead: Representative Ryan, Don Humphrey, a reporter from NBC, a cameraman from
NBC, a newspaper photographer, and one defector from the Peoples Temple. Surviving the attack were former California State Senator Jackie Speier; a staff
member for Ryan; Richard Dwyer, the Deputy Chief of Mission from the U.S.
Embassy at Georgetown and allegedly an officer of the Central Intelligence
Agency; and Bob Flick, a producer for NBC News. Later that same day, 914 of the remaining inhabitants of Jonestown, 276 of
them children, died in what has commonly been labeled a mass suicide. (However, because there is much ambiguity regarding whether
many who participated did so voluntarily or were forced (or even killed outright), some feel that mass murder is a more accurate
description.) Some followers obeyed Jones' instructions to commit "revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced grape flavored Flavor Aid[5] (often misidentified as Kool-aid[6]). Others died by forced cyanide injection or by shooting. Jones
was found dead sitting in a deck chair with a gunshot wound to the head, although it is unknown if he had been murdered or
committed suicide. Autopsy of his body showed levels of the barbiturate pentobarbital that could have been lethal to humans who
have not developed physiological tolerance. His drug usage (including various
LSD and marijuana experimentations)
was confirmed by his son, Stephan, and Jones's doctor in San Francisco.
Other issues
Jones married Marceline Baldwin, with whom he had two sons, one biological and one adopted.
Their biological son, Stephan Gandhi Jones, did not take part in the mass suicide because he was
away, playing with the Peoples Temple basketball team in a game against the Guyanese national
team. Jones' adopted son, Jim Jones Jr., was African American; he was also playing with the
basketball team at the time of the mass suicide.[7] Jim and Marceline were the first white couple in Indiana to adopt an African American
child.[8]
Jones claimed to be the biological father of John Victor Stoen, who was the legal son of
Grace Stoen and her husband Timothy Stoen. The custody dispute
over Stoen had great symbolic value for the Peoples Temple and intensified the conflict with its opponents who consisted of,
among others, a group called the "Concerned Relatives".
Marceline and Jim Jones' son Stephan Jones is a businessman and family man, married with three children of his own. He
appeared in the recent documentary Jonestown: Paradise Lost which aired on the History Channel. He states that he will not watch the film and that he does not mourn his father,
only his mother Marceline.[9] Jim Jr., who had lost his
wife and unborn child at Jonestown, returned to San Francisco, remarried, and has three sons from that marriage. One of them,
Rob, currently plays basketball at the University of San Diego.[7]
In MacArthur Park, Los Angeles on
December 13, 1973, Jones was arrested and charged with
soliciting a man for sex in a movie theater bathroom known for homosexual activity. [10] The man
was an undercover Los Angeles Police
Department vice officer. Jones is on record as later telling his followers that he was
"the only true heterosexual", but at least one account exists of his sexually abusing a
male member of his congregation in front of the followers, ostensibly to prove the man's own homosexual tendencies.[11]
One of his sources of inspiration was the controversial cult leader Father
Divine[12]. Jones had borrowed the term
"revolutionary suicide" from Black Panther leader
Huey Newton who had argued "the slow suicide of life in the ghetto" ought to be replaced by revolutionary struggle that would end only in victory (socialism and self
determination) or revolutionary suicide (death).
See also
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
References
- ^ http://www.wargs.com/other/jonesjw.html
- ^ http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/11/18/JONESTOWN.TMP
- ^ http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/PrimarySources/letter-rev.htm
- ^ , McCormick Maaga, Mary Hearing
the voices of Jonestown, 1998 Syracuse University press, ISBN 0-8156-0515-3
- ^ Jonestown
Report
- ^ Peoples Temple (Jonestown) this is also where the term, "to drink the kool-aid"
orginated) The Religious Movements Homepage Project The University of Virginia
- ^ a b Fish, Jon and Chris Connelly (2007-10-05).
Outside the Lines: Grandson of Jonestown founder is making a name for himself. ESPN.com. Retrieved on 2007-10-06.
- ^ PBS biography on Jim Jones
- ^ The son who survived Jonestown By Bill Brownstein The Gazette, Canada/March 9, 2007
- ^ “Sex in Peoples Temple” by David Wise (2004)
- ^ “Sex in Peoples Temple” by David Wise (2004)
- ^ FAQ: Who was the leader of Peoples Temple? from Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & peoples' Temple
- Shiva Naipaul: Black & White, Hamish Hamilton, London 1980, ISBN
0-241-10337-1
- Deborah Layton: Seductive Poison, Anchor Books, 1999, ISBN
0-385-48984-6
External links
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