Februaiy 4, 2009
ì l ’* IJ n rtliin ì» OObaeruer
Page A6
B lack H istory M onth
Race Utopia and the Peoples Temple
Peoples Temple
members
showcase their
work, the
Peoples Forum
newspaper.
Peoples Temple leader Jim Jones speaks into the microphone.
drinks and disturbing im ages of Jonestow n, in a rem ote part of
children poisoned by their par­ G uyana in South America.
"We saw that 80 percent or
ents em erged from the jungle.
so
o
f the people [who joined the
Am erican Experience goes be­
Peoples
Tem ple] were African
yond the salacious headlines to
American,"
film m aker Stanley
provide a revealing portrait of
N
elson
n
o
tes."
W hat w ere these
Jones,
his
follow
ers,
and
the
E ditor's note: The follow ing
African
A
m
ericans
doing in the
tim
es
that
produced
the
calam
­
isfrom a synopsis o f Jonestown:
middle
o
f
the
jungle
with this
ity
in
the
G
uyanese
jungle.
The Life and D eath o f Peoples
w
hite
man?"
The
film
’s
com
pelling
narra­
Temple, the 2008 docum entary
Jones’ son, Jim Jones Jr. ac­
tive is told by the people who
which will rebroadcast Feb. 15
know
ledges all the suffering his
know
the
story
firsthand,
in­
on P B S ’s American Experience.
father
caused, but struggles to
cluding
Jonestow
n
survivors.
Congressman Leo Ryan trav­
rem
em
ber positive aspects of
Tem
ple
defectors,
and
the
fam
i­
eled to an isolated rain forest in
his
youth
in Peoples Tem ple. "It
lies
o
f
the
dead.
G uyana to investigate the con­
allow
ed
me,
as a black man, to
Race
was
an
im
portant
sub­
cerns o f his San Francisco-area
hold
my
head
up high," he told
ject
for
the
Rev.
Jim
Jones,
who
constituents. T heir alarm ing
a
reporter
in
1993.
created
an
integrated
fam
ily,
an
stories focused on a jungle com ­
Jim Jones grew up as an out­
integrated congregation, and the
pound known as Jonestow n, a
sider
in Indiana. He claim ed his
in
te
g
r
a
te
d
c
o
m
p
o
u
n
d
at
g ro u p c a lle d th e P e o p le s
dark hair and high cheekbones
cam e from Cherokfce blood on
his mother's side. His adopted
children were Korean and black,
and significantly, his black son
shared Jones' ow n name.
PeoplesTemple memberGary
Lam brev rem em bers, "Jim al­
ways pointed out not only that
his family, his immediate family,
was interracial by adoption but
that he personally w as a man
who was profoundly blended of
many different racial and ethnic
streams.
But then increasingly as the
organization became blacker and
blacker, he began to talk about
him self as a black man, first a
man o f color, and then a black
man."
Jones was m otivated to start
Peoples Tem ple in part because
he disliked mainstream denom i­
nations that served single-race
Bodies o f Peoples Temple members surround a pavilion at Jonestown. More than nine
congregations.
He found a model for his new
hundred people died from cyanide poisoning on Nov. 18,1978.
church in Father D ivine's Peace
M ission on trips to Philadelphia
in the late 1950s. Divine, a con­
The life and
death of
Johnstown
Tem ple, and its leader, Rev. Jim
Jones.
According to new s filtering
back to A m erica, U.S. citizens
were being held against their
will in prison cam p conditions.
There were allegations o f physi­
cal and sexual abuse and even
rum ors o f a planned mass sui­
cide.
C ongressm an Ryan, an im ­
passioned human rights advo­
cate, decided to get the facts for
him self. W ithin fo rty -e ig h t
hours, Ryan, Jones, and over
900 Jonestow n settlers were
dead — casualties o f the largest
mass m urder-suicide in history.
In the next few days, horrify­
ing details o f cyanide-laced soft
N O W D E L IV E R IN G
Y o u r fa v o r ite n e ig h b o r h o o d g r o c e r y s to r e n o w d e liv e r s
g r o c e r ie s r ig h t to y o u r h o m e o r o ffic e .
À
w w w .n e w s e a s o n s m a r k e t.c o m
you click, we deliver, (or pull up for pick up)
t
tem porary o f the controversial
black separatist leader M arcus
G arvey, was a charismatic black
preacher whose m eetings were
theatrical and physical.
W o rs h ip p e rs a lte r n a te ly
rose up or fell to their knees; one
m em ber m ight be healed; an­
other might faint at the presence
o f the Holy Spirit. A num ber of
Peoples Tem ple m em bers no­
ticed a change in Jones' preach­
ing style after he visited Father
Divine. Jones became more flam-
b o y a n t, a n d h is m ix o f
Pentecostalism and M ethodism
appealed to the African A m eri­
can com m unity.
The w orship may have been
fam iliar in style, but Peoples
Tem ple's social and political
activism was som ething new. It
appealed to A frican A m ericans
stuff a mass mailing, or enthusi­
astically cheer a cam paign rally
at a m om ent's notice.
Peoples Tem ple ran hom es
to care for the elderly, h alf a
dozen foster hom es for children
and a ranch licensed to care for
the m entally disabled. Tem ple
social w orkers helped navigate
the bureaucracies o f the welfare
system or the juvenile justice
system for members. Day camps
were established so that urban
kids could leant to ride a horse
or swim in a pond.
By 1968, a terrible year o f
assassinations and fear, many
people who had lent their ef­
forts to the civil rights cause
found them selves w ondering
how to actively live M artin
Luther King's dream. Jim Jones
show ed them how.
Jim Jones raises his arms up at a healing service. To the
believers in the audience, they reinforced Jones' power
and legitimacy. However, many o f those healed looked
suspiciously like Temple members wearing disguises.
looking for alternatives to their
conservative churches.
M any black m inisters in the
late 1950s and into the 1960s
were still preaching patience,
asking their congregations to
accept inequities and aw ait a
better future in heaven, even as
forceful young leaders like M ar­
tin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm
X were dem anding changes in
the here and now.
In many ways, Jones worked
in the vanguard o f these soci­
etal shifts, providing m eals and
hom e care services to the most
econom ically distressed in In­
dianapolis, without discrim inat­
ing by race.
He and his wife were the First
w hite couple to adopt a black
baby in the state in 1961, the
year Freedom Riders trying to
d eseg reg ate in terstate buses
were brutally attacked in A la­
bama.
In 1965, Peoples T em ple
moved its base to Ukiah, Calif. It
was a tumultuous time in Am eri­
can history, with more than
200,(XX) troops Fighting in V iet­
nam and social upheavals at
home.
In this environm ent, Jones
allied his group with progres­
siv e p o litic ia n s d em an d in g
rights for m inorities and the
poor. H u n d red s o f P eo p les
Tem ple volunteers could blan­
ket a neighborhood with fliers.
Peoples Tem ple welcom ed
p e o p le o f e v e ry ra c e an d
ethnicity. The racial integration
becam e self-fulfilling at some
point; the congregation itself
becam e the draw.
Jonestow n was m eant to be a
mixed race utopia.
In the end, Jim Jones d e­
stroyed his interracial church.
The horrible end spared few
members, black or white, young
or old - and the survivors were
either extrem ely resourceful or
lucky.
Perhaps the only positive
thing left behind is a legacy of
racial harm ony. O ver the years,
h u n d re d s o f p eo p le jo in e d
Peoples Tem ple of their own
free will. In hindsight, it is easy
to q u estion why individuals
w ould join a group that becam e
a cult and cost them their lives.
But PeoplesTemple members
saw things differently at the
time. They joined because they
believed in a society w here
people of all races could live and
work together. They joined b e­
cause they w anted their actions
and exam ples to lead to that
society.
Leaving aside, for a moment,
the many w ays the organization
m anipulated and exploited its
m em bers, it is clear that the
congregants o f Peoples Tem ple
genuinely found happiness in
fellowship, regardless o f race.