An evangelical preacher led nearly a thousand followers from the United States deep into the jungles of South America. They would build a new community, free of oppression and violence. It was to be there new vision of paradise on earth. But outsiders threatened to expose the dark side of their leader. Then one day, two worlds collided, and paradise was lost.
Jim Jones was born in a tiny town in Indiana. His mother was the breadwinner and she worked in a factory. She also was a forceful woman as well as a union activist in her place of work and many people think that translated to Jim. Jim felt as if was an outcast. Early on he developed a sensitivity for the promise of black people since he was never accepted. He joined a Pentecostal church since they were seen as the rejects of the community.
Jones was looking for a place where he could have power. He saw the filled church mesmerized while they listened to the minister and would imagine having that much power. He wanted a job just like that. He did whatever it took to get there.
There was a presence about Jones. People claimed there was a fire in his eyes. As an extremely powerful preacher, he took in a lot of people who were disenfranchised, and they loved him. He created a place of worship called People's Temple. His whole body punctuated what he was saying, and his message was social justice. His driving force was less the bible and more of social justice. He was very much ahead of the current climate in terms of race relations and his desire to create an integrated society. You saw every color of the rainbow seated in front of Jones while he was centered on the stage.
It was striking that Jones insisted that his congregation be integrated, and he was attacked for it. It was a long way away from the Civil Rights Act and so he was seen quite unusual for that. At the time, at the height of its power, People's Temple was really looked upon as a marvelous enterprise. He had a rehabilitation center for drug addicts, a senior citizen home where people would come and live, he housed homeless people, had a daycare, and had a medical clinic. Every single person that joined People's Temple wanted something better for their lives. People followed Jones because he gave them something that wasn't in their lives before and gave them believe in themselves.
Not only did Jones seek out and endorse all of these causes but he also lived a life that way in his own life. Jim and Marceline Jones, his wife, ended up adopting what they call a "rainbow family". They adopted some children from Korea and a little African American boy. His family was designed to mirror what he thought the world should be like. It was unusual for a white family to adopt black kids, but it also served as a prop. It promoted him as the hero of the cause.
You heard the message you wanted to hear, that's what his talent was in some ways. He played both sides of good and evil. Good to draw people in and evil to control them. He was a predator that mastered the art of bringing people in from every segment of life. As time went on he talked less and less about god and more about social transformation.
In 1965, Jones decided to move his flock from Indiana. He felt that he wasn't welcomed in Indiana and that it was time to go elsewhere. He convinced his core followers, 150 of them, to follow him out to Redwood Valley, California. Jones is said to have chosen Redwood valley because Esquire magazine said it was one of the nine places in the world you wanted to be in the event of a nuclear holocaust. Jones was going for a type of rural retreat where everything would be shared, and everyone would work together. This was really attractive given the time.
In the summer of 1967, San Francisco was the time of hope. Everybody has this belief that nonviolence, music, and culture can change the world and end the war. "If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear a flower in your hair" was pretty much the national anthem of the San Francisco counterculture but the message underneath all of those trappings was aggressive and powerfully compelling. By the end of Summer 1967, it seemed that anything was possible, both wonderful and terrible. It was a time of enormous liberation and that begins a period that creates an atmosphere where someone like Jones could do very well.
Jones at the time was known for raising people from the dead. He learned how to do faith healing by going to revival tents as a kid. He was able to convince all of these people that he had this godlike ability to heal them. Jones was willing to not always be honest. He once had a secretary from the church dress up as though she was one with a disability and sit in a wheelchair in the middle of this gigantic congregation. He commanded her to stand and she did so. He then commanded her to talk and then run as she proceeded to. People wanted to believe so much that they didn't see the negativity. He was a conman instead of a religious leader.
Control became a huge issue for Jones and he tried to control people in all sorts of bizarre ways. People began turning over their homes and turning over their bank accounts. He started having people sign blank pieces of paper. Anything could be typed over that signature. He had parents sign false confessions that they were molesting their children as a way to potentially blackmail them if they ever dared leave the church. It got to the point where you couldn't even trust your own family.
The first suicide practice brought upon by Jones was in 1973. He called them together and asked them whether this movement was worth dying for. He floats the idea of staging a suicide to get attention to protest capitalism in support of socialism. The inner circle was then invited to practice a kind of ritual that mimicked holy communion. Everyone received a small amount of wine in a Styrofoam cup. Everyone drank it then Jones says to them "You've all just been poisoned, you've got an hour to live". A few minutes later Jones then tells them that he was joking and that he was trying to see who the loyal ones to the church were. Questioning obedience was what he looked for in his followers.
Jones would conjure up fear. Many of his followers felt threatened and isolated in the states. Jones had this plan to move to Guyana in South America. It was the only English-speaking country in South America and the land was cheap. In 1976, about 50 of Jones's followers flew down with him to Guyana. Immediately, everyone starts building a town for their community. In the beginning, everyone claimed they loved living there. They didn't have any desire to go back to the United States whatsoever. They were harvesting crops, had huge farms and grew together as a community. Jones claimed everyone had reached the promised land. Soon enough though, people started catching on that Jones was a fraud. What people seemed to think he was, was not who he actually was. Nobody knew exactly what was going on in Guyana and what it was like living there. Jones started requiring all of the members to get passports and to leave from different airports across the country, so it wasn't obvious that San Francisco was emptying itself. For the church to run away and hide in the jungle left open a real question, what would come next?
It wasn't very long before people started to realize that this wasn't what they had envisioned. People were trapped in Jonestown. It was surrounded by miles and miles of jungle in the middle of nowhere. Even Jones's most loyal followers started to realize that he was started to become crazier. Jonestown started to become overcrowded and it was a failing agricultural community. They started to run out of food and water. Jones started punishing people for no reason and they would be injected with drugs and taken to a unit where they were quarantined. The community started practicing suicide drills where if they were under attack, Jones would again give them "Kool-Aid" and they were told to drink it. He claimed that they would be taking their life for a cause. It was peer pressure and Jones was brainwashing these poor innocent people.
Investigations started in terms of what was going on with People's Temple. Congressman Leo Ryan has sensed something had been unusual with Jones and decided to go investigate Guyana. They wanted to talk to the member's face to face of Jonestown and wanted to find out what was going on. What Ryan saw was that everyone seemed to be enjoying Jonestown. Then Ryan started to notice that things were off. A few people were passing notes to Ryan saying that they are being told to act fake and that they want to go back to the United States. The atmosphere in that community completely changed. Ryan started bringing families back to America and Jones started to feel defeated and helpless. As soon as the congressman left, Jones called together a few people to go after Congressman Ryan. Hours later before Ryan and a few families start to board planes to head back to the United States, Congressman Ryan gets shot and dies. Jones claimed, "If we can't live in peace, let us die in peace".
Jones had been planning this moment for years. At that moment, the members of People's Temple could no longer say no. Since congressman Ryan is dead, the word has now been spread about what is actually going on in Jonestown. People started giving up their lives because Jones had told them to. Jones started enacting his "revolutionary suicide" plan at the compound, which members drank a fruit drink that would poison and kill them. First, they killed the children. Some with needles and some with drinking the fruit juice. They were forcibly taking children from their parent's arms and killing them. Nobody can argue that that was by choice. People pretended to drink the juice, ran away then were shot in the back and others ran to be with their family and syringes of cyanide would be injected into their back. Over 900 members of the People's Church died that day. Anything that was left on the Jim Jones that cared and loved was long gone at that point.
Jim Jones took the easy route, with a bullet to the head. Many people believed that the main motivation Jones took everyone along with him was that he just didn't want to go alone. When the camp had been found by helicopters, it was described that all of the dead body looked like confetti. If you say "Jonestown" and actually find somebody who's heard of Jonestown you'll hear "cult, suicide, and Kool-Aid". That's what every person's life who had died in Jonestown has been reduced to. The idea of drinking the Kool-Aid was Jonestown inspired language. Even though they didn't actually drink Kool-Aid, it was cyanide induced flavor-aid. The reality is, is that it wasn't just some giant let's get together and die for Jim Jones moment, it was exactly the opposite. What happened in Jonestown was murder.