The story of Jim Jones, The People’s Temple and the tragedy at Jonestown is a cautionary tale of a child who later in adulthood would tell his congregation that he had no love given to him and he didn’t know what love was…Born James Warren Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) in Crete, Indiana. His father, a disabled War Vet shared no emotion and his mother (who in later years would follow her son to Guyana) worked to support the family.

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 He would eventually, post high school, end up in Indianapolis, married to Marceline Baldwin. His first stint at pastoring was as a student pastor in the Methodist Church in 1952, but by 1956 he founded People’s Temple. People’s Temple joined the Disciples of Christ in 1960. Jones was ordained in 1964. He was inspired by and visited George Baker known as Father Divine. Divine believed he was God and held supernatural powers.

Jones created his ministry from elements of Divine’s with a combination of communism, and radical religious dogma. He was charismatic enough to pull it off. By the mid-70s People’s Temple landed in the San Francisco’s impoverished black Fillmore District. The people of the community became enamored and taken by his vision of a peaceful and multiracial society. The success of his leadership and ego was the beginning of his charming, manipulative spiral, while adapting a quasi-black leader persona…We all know how it ended…

So here are some interesting facts about Jim Jones

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There was a racial hierarchy in People’s Temple even though the majority of  congregants were black, his “leadership council” was dominated by white women. Of those 37, some were his sexual conquests.  

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Jim Jones, Jr., Jones’ black adopted son recalled:

 “When people talk about my father manipulating black people, that’s true. It was politically advantageous for him to give me his name. “I was the chosen one,” he said. “I was more loved in my family than the other kids, even their biological son, Stephan. I remember Mom wiping charcoal off a dirty pot one day and rubbing it all over her face — to show that we were all black.”

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Jim Jones ability to control and manipulate his many followers won him favor with San Francisco’s liberal elite. He became the darling of the Democratic Party.

The then up and coming Willie Brown recognized Jones’ potential as a catalyst in getting his friend, George Muscone elected Mayor. Muscone, first hesitant about Jones, met with him and saw the victory in using Jones’ congregants as campaigners. Muscone won the election.

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Jones used sexual blackmail to make sure that Muscone remembered the debt that he owed him from the election and became a political albatross to Muscone’s career. Jones realized his control and let it be known to some that he supplied Muscone with black female congregants. Muscone vulnerability: he loved to party. And gossip began to circulate among the flock.

 

Jones became hungry for political power and would accept anything but a gratifyingly high position in San Francisco’s government.  By October 1976 Moscone named Jones to the San Francisco Housing Authority. The agency controlled operation of the city’s public housing and a few months later Jim Jones was Chairman. He  used his position to put his parishioners in public housing and put some on the city’s payroll. He gave a sense of equality to those who were marginalized. But to what gain?

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Willie Brown called Jim Jones a “combination of Martin Luther King, Angela Davis, Albert Einstein  and  Chairman Mao”.

The Communist Party, was an important part of Jones’ life and ideology years before  Peoples Temple. He joined the CPUSA (Communist Party USA) early on in the late 1940s. He took issue with the US anti-communist sentiments in the United States and went public with his ideology by the early 1950s.

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Jim Jones’ connection to mainstream Democratic politics has been grossly understated. There were many in the party that gave him glowing accolades and support:

Jimmy Carter, Rosalynn Carter, Jerry Brown, Harvey Milk, the NAACP, Diane Feinstein, Walter Mondale were among the many enthralled with Jones. Rosalynn went so far as to campaign (during her husband's campaign) with Jones. He introduced her at a campaign speech. She even went so far as to connect him to her sister-in-law, Ruth Carter Stapleton.

Not satisfied with the quiet accolades from politicians and more driven by his own ego and greed for power, Jim Jones threw a testimonial banquet in his own honor. Pressing the politicians that he believed were indebted to him offer the quiet accolades in public on September 25, 1976, Peoples Temple was transformed into a formal dining hall. Assemblyman Willie Brown was the MC.

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