Jim Jones
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Image:Jim Jones brochure of Peoples Temple.jpg James Warren "Jim" Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was the American founder of the People's Temple church that developed into a group with cult-like beliefs, power structures and practices. On November 18, 1978, most of Peoples Temple's members followed Jones' advice to commit collective suicide by drinking poison in their isolated intentional community called Jonestown, located in the jungle of Guyana. Jones was found dead with a shot in his head among the 914 corpses there.
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Early life and founding of Temple
Jones was born in Crete, Indiana, near Lynn, Indiana and was the son of James Thurman Jones and Lynetta. He became a preacher in the 1950s and founded a church with the name "Wings of deliverance" that he renamed "People's Temple Full Gospel Church", located in Indianapolis. He gained respectability when he became an ordained minister in 1964 in the mainstream christian denomination Disciples of Christ. The church was exceptional 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. He claimed to be an incarnation of Jesus, Akhenaten, the Buddha, Lenin, and Father Divine and performed supposed miracle healings to attract new members. Members of Jones' Peoples Temple called Jones "Dad" 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 mainstream Christianity towards advocating social justice.
George Moscone, the mayor of San Francisco appointed Reverend Jim Jones to the city's Housing Commission.
Jonestown and mass suicide
Main Article: Jonestown
In the summer of 1977, Jones and most of the 1,000 members of the People's Temple moved to Guyana from San Francisco after an investigation began into the church for tax evasion. 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 communist principles. Jones told his followers to think of him as the incarnation of Christ and God.
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 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.
It has been argued that Jones' authority waned after he moved to the isolated commune, because there he was not needed anymore for recruitment and he could not hide his drug addiction from rank and file members. 1 Consequently, he lost some of his power to inner-circle members.
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 14 and spent three days interviewing residents. They left hurriedly on the morning of Saturday November 18 after an attempt was made on Ryan's life. They took with them roughly 20 People's Temple members who wished to leave. Delegation members later told police that, as they were boarding planes at the airstrip, a truckload of Jones' armed guards arrived and began to shoot at them . When the gunmen left five people were dead: Rep. Ryan, a reporter from NBC, a cameraman from NBC, a newspaper photographer and one "defector" from the People's Temple. Current California State Senator Jackie Speier, a staff member for Congressman Ryan in 1978, CIA agent Richard Dwyer and a producer for NBC News, Bob Flick, survived the attack.
Later that same day, the remaining 914 inhabitants of Jonestown, 276 of them children, committed mass suicide that Jones referred to as "revolutionary suicide" on Jones's instructions by drinking cyanide-laced Flavor Aid, by forced cyanide injection, or by shooting. Jones was found dead with a shot in the head, sitting in a deck chair. The autopsy on his body showed levels of medicine that are lethal to humans who have not developed physiological tolerance.
Other issues
Jones was married to Marceline Jones. They had one biological son, Stephan, who survived the mass suicide. 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 People's Temple and intensified the conflict with its opponents that consisted of, among others, a group called the "Concerned Relatives".
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. The man it turns out was a undercover LAPD 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 member of his congregation in front of the followers, ostensibly to prove that man's own gay tendencies.
One of his sources of inspiration was the controversial cult leader Father Divine. He borrowed the concept of "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 suicide that would end only in victory or death.
See also
External links
- San Francisco Chronicle article commemorating the mass suicide 25 years ago
- Jim Jones source for his ideology and cult control techniques
- Jim Jones - The Rotten Library
- University of Virginia
References
- McCormick Maaga, Mary Hearing the voices of Jonestown, 1998 Syracuse University press, ISBN 0815605153
- Hall, John R. and Philip Schuyler (1998), Apostasy, Apocalypse, and religious violence: An Exploratory comparison of Peoples Temple, the Branch Davidians, and the Solar Temple, in the book The Politics of Religious Apostasy: The Role of Apostates in the Transformation of Religious Movements edited by David G. Bromley Westport, CT, Praeger Publishers, (1998). ISBN 0-275-95508-7
Categories: 1931 births | 1978 deaths | Peoples Temple | Charismatic religious leaders | People from Indiana
