Jim Jones

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James Warren "Jim" Jones
Photo credit: The Jonestown Institute
Born	May 13, 1931(1931-05-13) Crete, Indiana
Died	November 18, 1978 (aged 47) Jonestown, Guyana
Occupation	Leader, Peoples Temple

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 death of over 900 people from cyanide poisoning in their isolated agricultural intentional community called Jonestown, along with the death of 9 other people at a nearby airstrip and in Georgetown. To the extent the actions in Jonestown were viewed as a mass suicide, it is one of the largest such mass suicides in history, perhaps the largest in over 1,900 years and the largest mass suicide of United States citizens. At a nearby airstrip, the event also resulted in the first and only murder of a Congressman, Leo Ryan, in the history of the United States, along with the murder of three journalists and a defecting Temple member. Four other Temple members also died in Georgetown that night.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Founding of the Temple 2.1 Indiana beginnings 2.2 Move to California 3 San Francisco Housing Commission and Political Support 4 Jonestown's formation and operation 4.1 Political support for Jones after he fled to Jonestown 4.2 Further pressure for investigations of Jonestown 5 Visit by Congressman Ryan, murders and mass suicide 5.1 Port Kaituma Airstrip shootings 5.2 Deaths in Jonestown 6 Other issues 7 Family 8 References 9 Bibliography 10 External links

[edit] Early life

Jones was born in Crete, Indiana, to James Thurman Jones, a World War I veteran, and Lyneta Putnam.^[1] He would later claim part Cherokee descent through his mother. In 2007 interviews with PBS, childhood acquaintances recalled Jones as being a "weird kid" who was "obsessed with religion ... obsessed with death;" they further claimed that Jones frequently held funerals for small animals, and heard a story of Jones fatally stabbing a cat.^[2]. He graduated from Richmond High School in Richmond, Indiana. In 1951 Jones and his wife Marceline moved to Indianapolis, where Jones enrolled in Butler University attending night school and earned a degree in secondary education in 1961.^[3]

[edit] Founding of the Temple

Main article: Peoples Temple

[edit] Indiana beginnings

In 1951, Jones began attending communist meetings and rallies in Indianapolis.^[4] Jones became flustered at harassment he received during the McCarthy Hearings,^[4] particularly, regarding meetings between Jones and his mother with Paul Robeson.^[5] This, among other things, provoked a seminal moment for Jones where he asked himself "how can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church."^[5][4]

Jones' interest in religion began during his childhood, mainly because he found making friends difficult, though initially he vacillated on his church of choice.^[6] In 1952, Jones became a student pastor in Sommerset Southside Methodist Church, but left that church because they barred him from integrating African Americans into his congregation.^[4] Around this time, Jones witnessed a faith-healing service at the Seventh Day Baptist Church, observed that it attracted people and their cash and concluded that with financial resources from such healings, he could help accomplish his social goals.^[4]

Jones then began his own church, which changed names until it became the Peoples Temple Christian Church Full Gospel.^[4] Jones sold pet monkeys door-to-door to raise the money to fund his church.^[7]

In 1961, Jones helped to integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the police department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Methodist Hospital and became the executive director of the Indianapolis Human Rights Commission.^[4]

Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views.^[4] Jim and Marcy Jones were also the first white couple in Indiana to adopt an African American child, and they also adopted other children of Korean-American and Native American ancestry.^[8][4]

[edit] Move to California

After traveling in Brazil from 1962 to 1963, in 1965, Jones claimed that the world would be engulfed in a nuclear war on July 15, 1967 that would then create a new socialist Eden on earth and that they must move to Northern California for safety. ^[9][4] Accordingly, the Peoples Temple began moving to Redwood Valley, California.^[4]

While Jones had always spoke of the social gospel's virtues, before the late 1960s, Jones did not reveal that his gospel was actually communism.^[4] By the late 1960s, Jones began at least partially openly revealing in Temple sermons his "Apostolic Socialism" concept.^[4] Specifically, "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment -- socialism."^[10] Jones often mixed those concepts, such as preaching that "If you're born in capitalist America, racist America, fascist America, then you're born in sin. But if you're born in socialism, you're not born in sin."^[11]

By the early 1970s, Jones began deriding traditional Christianity as "fly away religion," rejected the Bible as being white mens' justification to subordinate women and enslave of people of color and stated it spoke of a "Sky God" who was no God at all.^[4] Jones authored a booklet titled "The Letter Killeth," stating what he felt were the contradictions, absurdities, and atrocities in the Bible. ^[12]

By the Spring of 1976, Jones began openly admitting even to outsiders that he was an atheist.^[13] Despite the Temple's fear that the IRS was investigating its religious tax exemption, by 1977, Jones' wife Marcy admitted to the New York Times that, as early as age 18 when he watched his idol Mao Tse Tung overthrow the Chinese government, Jim Jones realized that the way to achieve social change through Marxism in the United States was to mobilize people through religion.^[9] She stated that "Jim used religion to try to get some people out of the opiate of religion," and had slammed the bible on the table yelling "I've got to destroy this paper idol!" ^[9]

[edit] San Francisco Housing Commission and Political Support

Since the Peoples Temple participation was instrumental in the mayoral election victory of George Moscone in 1975, Moscone appointed Jones as the Chairman of the San Francisco Housing Commission.^[14]

Unlike most other figures deemed as cult leaders, Jones enjoyed public support and contact with some of the highest level politicians in the United States. For example, in the heat of the 1976 presidential campaign, Jones met with vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale on his campaign plane.^[15] Likewise, First Lady Rosalynn Carter personally met Jones for a private dinner at the Stanford Court Hotel.^[15] Mrs. Carter later called Jones personally.^[16] At the 1976 grand opening of the San Francisco Democratic Party Headquarters, Jones packed the audience with Temple members and garnered louder applause when he spoke than Mrs. Carter.^[17]

In September of 1976, Willie Brown served as master of ceremonies at a large testimonial dinner for Jones, also attended by Governor Jerry Brown, Lieutenant Govenor Mervyn Dymally, among others.^[18] At that dinner, while introducing Jones, Willie Brown stated "Let me present to you what you should see every day when you look in the mirror in the early morning hours ... Let me present to you a combination of Martin King, Angela Davis, Albert Einstein ... Chairman Mao."^[19] Introducing Jones at another dinner, Brown referred to him as "a young man came upon the scene, became an inspiration for a whole lot of people. He’s done fantastic things."^[20] At that testimonial dinner when Jones garnered huge applause from the thousands attending, Moscone stated "you know I’m smarter than to give a speech after listening to Reverend Jim Jones" and "there are two people I’m glad I’m not running against, Cecil Williams and Jim Jones".^[21]

Following a visit to the Peoples Temple, Harvey Milk wrote to Jones: "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."^[22]

[edit] Jonestown's formation and operation

Main article: Jonestown

In the summer of 1977, Jones and several hundred Temple members moved to the Temple's "Agriculatural Project" in Guyana after they learned of the contents of a newspaper article by Marshall Kilduff to be published, in which former Temple members claimed they were physically, emotionally, and sexually abused.^[23][17] Jones named the settlement Jonestown after himself.

Jones purported to establish Jonestown as a benevolent model communist community stating, "I believe we’re the purest communists there are." ^[24] Jones' wife, Marceline, described Jonestown as "dedicated to live for socialism, total economic and racial and social equality. We are here living communally."^[24] Jones wanted to construct a model community to show others and stated that Prime Minister of Guyana Forbes Burnham "couldn’t rave enough about us, uh, the wonderful things we do, the project, the model of socialism."^[25] In that regard, like the restrictive emigration policies of the then Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea and other communist republics, Jones did not permit members to leave Jonestown.^[26]

In spite of the allegations, Jones was still widely respected for setting up a racially mixed church which helped the disadvantaged; 68 percent of Jonestown's residents were black.^[27]

Religious scholar Mary McCormick Maaga argued that Jones' authority waned after he moved to the isolated commune, because he was not needed for recruitment and he could not hide his drug addiction from rank and file members.^[28]

[edit] Political support for Jones after he fled to Jonestown

After Jones' move to Jonestown, as a show of support, Willie Brown spoke at a rally at the Peoples Temple, also attended by Harvey Milk and Art Agnos, stating "When somebody like Jim Jones comes on the scene, that absolutely scares the hell out of most everybody occupying positions of power in the system."^[29] Harvey Milk wrote Jones a handwritten note stating "my name is cut into stone in support of you - and your people."^[30] Most imporantly for Jones and the Temple, Moscone's office shortly thereafter issued a press release saying that Jones had broken no laws. ^[30]

Amidst growing pressure in the United States to investigate the Temple, on February 19, 1978, Harvey Milk wrote a letter of support for the Peoples Temple to President Jimmy Carter.^[31] Therein, Milk wrote that Jones was known "as a man of the highest character."^[31] Regarding defecting Temple members pressing for an investigation of the Peoples Temple, Milk wrote "they are attempting to damage Rev. Jones reputation" with "apparent bold-faced lies."^[31]

[edit] Further pressure for investigations of Jonestown

On April 11, 1978, the Concerned Relatives of Peoples Temple members distributed a packet of documents, including letters and affidavits, that they titled an "Accusation of Human Rights Violations by Rev. James Warren Jones" to the Peoples Temple, members of the press and members of Congress.^[32] In June of 1978, escaped Temple member Deborah Layton provided the group with a further affidavit detailing alleged crimes by the Peoples Temple and substandard living conditions in Jonestown. ^[33]

In the summer of 1978, Jones also hired famous JFK assassination conspiracy theorists Mark Lane and Donald Freed to help make the case of a "grand conspiracy" by intelligence agencies against the Peoples Temple.^[34] Jones told Lane he wanted to "pull an Eldridge Cleaver", referring to a fugitive Black Panther that was able to return to the United States after repairing his reputation.^[35]

[edit] Visit by Congressman Ryan, murders and mass suicide

Main article: Jonestown

In November 1978, U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan led a fact-finding mission to the Jonestown settlement in Guyana to investigate allegations of human rights abuses by relatives of Temple members in the U.S. Ryan's delegation, which included Don Harris, an NBC network news reporter, an NBC cameraman and reporters for various newspapers. The group arrived in Jonestown on November 15 and spent three days interviewing residents. Ryan's delegation was originally denied access to the camp, where it was later learned that the residents were practicing songs and dance. The delegation was granted access on November 17. However, it 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 fifteen People's 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.

[edit] Port Kaituma Airstrip shootings

Surviving delegation members later told police that as they were boarding two planes at the airstrip, the truck with 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 firing on members of the party. An NBC cameraman was able to capture footage of the shooting. When the gunmen departed, six people were dead: Representative Ryan, Don Harris, a reporter from NBC, a cameraman from NBC, a newspaper photographer, and one defector from the Peoples Temple. Surviving the attack were future Congresswoman Jackie Speier, then 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. The murder of Congresman Ryan was the first and only murder of a Congressman in the line of duty in the history of the United States.^[36]

[edit] Deaths in Jonestown

Later that same day, 909 inhabitants of Jonestown, 276 of them children, died of apparent cyanide poisoning, mostly in and around a Pavilion. No video was taken during the mass suicide, though the FBI did recover a 45 minute audio of the suicide in progress.^[37]

On that tape, Jones tells Temple members that Russia, with whom the Temple had been negotiating a potential exodus for months, would not take them after the Temple had murdered Congressman Leo Ryan, NBC reporter Don Harris and three others at a nearby airstrip.^[37] The reason given by Jones to commit suicide was consistent with Jones' previously stated conspiracy theories of intelligence organizations allegedly conspiring against the Temple, that men would "parachute in here on us," "shoot some of our innocent babies" and "they'll torture our children, they'll torture some of our people here, they'll torture our seniors."^[37] Parroting Jones' prior statements that hostile forces would convert captured children to fascism, one temple member states "the ones that they take captured, they're gonna just let them grow up and be dummies."^[37]

Given that reasoning, Jones and several members argued that the group should commit "revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced grape flavored Flavor Aid (often misidentified as Kool-Aid) along with a sedative.^[37] One member, Christine Miller, dissents toward the beginning of the tape.^[37] When members apparently cried, Jones counseled "Stop this hysterics. This is not the way for people who are Socialists or Communists to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity."^[37] Jones can be heard saying, "Don't be afraid to die" and, regarding death as "just stepping over into another plane" and that "[death is] a friend."^[37] 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."^[37] Children were given the drink first and families were told to lie down together. The mass suicide had been discussed in simulated events called "White Nights" on a regular basis, while members drank liquid Jones first told them was poison during at least one of those White Nights.

Jones was found dead sitting in a deck chair with a gunshot wound to the head that Guyanese coroner Cyrill Mootoo stated was consistent with a self-inflicted gun wound.^[38] An autopsy of Jones' body also showed levels of the barbiturate phenobarbital which would have been lethal to humans who had not developed physiological tolerance.^[39] His drug usage (including various LSD and marijuana experimentations) was confirmed by his son, Stephan, and Jones's doctor in San Francisco.

[edit] Other issues

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. ^[40] 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 sexual abusing of a male member of his congregation in front of the followers, ostensibly to prove the man's own homosexual tendencies.^[40]

One of his sources of inspiration was the controversial International Peace Mission movement leader Father Divine.^[41] Jones had borrowed the term "revolutionary suicide"^[42] from Black Panther leader and Peoples Temple supporter 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).

[edit] Family

Jones married Marceline, a nurse, with whom he had one biological son, Stephan Gandhi Jones.^[43] Jim and Marcy Jones also were the first white couple in Indiana to adopt an African American child, James Warren Jones, Jr.^[44]

In addition, the couple adopted children from varied ethnic backgrounds, including three children of Korean-American ancestry (Lew, Suzanne and Stephanie) and a part Native American daughter (Agnes).^[45][46] Jones referred to them as his rainbow family, and stated: "Integration is a more personal thing with me now. It's a question of my son's future."^[47] The couple also adopted another son, Tim. ^[48]

Stephan, Jim, Jr. and Tim did not take part in the mass suicide because they were in Georgetown playing with the Peoples Temple basketball team against the Guyanese national team.^[49][42] Three days before the tragedy, Stephan refused over the radio to comply with an order by his father to return the team to Jonestown for Ryan's visit.^[50]

Lew and Agnes died in the tragedy at Jonestown.^[51][52] Stephanie died at age 5 in a car accident.^[53] After Suzanne left and turned against the Temple, Jim Jones referred to her openly as "my goddamned no good for nothing daughter" and stated she was not to be trusted.^[54] In a signed note found at the time of her death, Marceline Jones directed that the Jones' funds were to be given to the Communist Party of the USSR and specified that "I especially request that none of these are allowed to get into the hands of my adopted daughter, Suzanne Jones Cartmell."^[55] Suzanne was not in Jonestown during the tragedy and died in November of 2006. ^[56]

Jones also claimed to be the biological father of John Victor Stoen, although the birth certificate lists Timothy and Grace Stoen as the parents of the boy.^[57] The Temple repeatedly claimed that Jones fathered the child when, in 1971, Tim Stoen had requested that Jones have sex with Grace Stoen to keep her from defecting.^[58] The custody dispute over John Stoen would be the lynchpin of several battles between the Temple and the Concerned Relatives.^[59] Specific references to Tim Stoen, including the logistics of possibly murdering him, are made on the Temple's final "death tape," as well as a discussion over whether the Temple should include John Stoen among those committing "revolutionary suicide."^[37]

Stephan is currently a businessman and family man who is married with three daughters. He appeared in the documentary Jonestown: Paradise Lost which aired on the History Channel and Discovery Channel. He stated he will not watch the documentary and that he does not mourn his father, only his mother Marceline.^[60] Jim, Jr., who lost his wife and unborn child at Jonestown, returned to San Francisco. He remarried and has three sons from this marriage.^[42]

[edit] References

[edit] Bibliography

• Klineman, George and Sherman Butler. The Cult That Died. G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1980. ISBN 0-399-12540-X.
• Layton, Deborah. Seductive Poison. Anchor Books, 1999. ISBN 0-385-48984-6.
• Naipaul, Shiva. Black & White. Hamish Hamilton, London, 1980. ISBN 0-241-10337-1.

[edit] External links

• American Experience documentary, "Jonestown: The Life And Death Of Peoples Temple", shown on PBS
• "The Official Story". The Crime Library. 27 June 2006.
• Transcript of Jones' final speech, just before the mass suicide
• McCormick Maaga, Mary. Hearing the voices of Jonestown. Syracuse University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8156-0515-3.
• University of Virginia profile: Peoples Temple (Jonestown)
• History Channel Video and Stills

v • d • e Peoples Temple Leadership Jim Jones History Father Divine · Wings of deliverance · Disciples of Christ · Jonestown · Mark Lane · Charles Garry · Larry Layton · Deborah Layton · Flavor Aid · Dr. Laurence Schacht · Hyacinth Thrash · John R. Burke · Jonestown conspiracy theory · Cult Awareness Network  · Jerry Brown  · Walter Mondale · George Moscone  · Willie Brown (politician) Congressional entourage Congressman Leo J. Ryan · Jackie Speier · Richard Dwyer · Tim Reiterman · Don Harris · Greg Robinson · Steve Sung · Bob Flick · Charles Krause · Ron Javers · Bob Brown Books The Jonestown Carnage · Seductive Poison Films Guyana: Crime of the Century · Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones · Cults: Dangerous Devotion · Jonestown: Paradise Lost · Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple WikiSource · Wikimedia Commons

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