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Jonestown: The Forgotten Tragedy

The tragedy of Jonestown is not normally talked about, like September 11th or Hurricane Katrina, but its definitely not forgotten with all the people involved. Jonestown was the tragedy the coined the phrase “drinking the Kool-Aid.” For my family, the loss of a loved one as well as the “Kool-Aid” jokes have been a sore spot around this time of the year for a long time.

My great-aunt Mary Pearl Willis was one of the people who was forced to die, by being injected twice on her shoulder with cyanide, regardless of the fact that she did not believe in anything he was preaching. In fact, my aunt was told if she were to go to Jonestown as a part of the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, working there for one year, she could adopt a Guyanese baby and come back to the United States. According to my mom Lela Howard, “she always loved children, but she was sterilized at 15 years old so she welcomed the opportunity to have kids.” In fact there has been no kind of remembrance for this tragedy for thirty years.

Most people have dismissed this tragedy as a “cult” or most people say, “these were crazy people.” There have been several movies based on “Hollywood’s interpretation” of what happened in Jonestown. People should realize that this was not indeed a cult; this was a clear example of someone playing upon people’s desire to see a better America than the one they already lived in, not to mention he played upon what minorities wanted to hear most, “racial equality”.
The Beginning

This all started out as a church in Indianapolis, Indiana referred to as the People’s Temple. During the harsh reality of racism in Indianapolis, Rev. Jim Jones felt that people of all colors needed a way to come together and unify under what church was really supposed to be about.

According to Fielding McGehee, head of the Jonestown Institute at San Diego State University “he gave the message of the bible, which was the social gospel, he preached about what people can do for each other.” McGehee’s wife Rebecca Moore (who lost two sisters and a nephew in the tragedy) agreed, “A lot of churches preach that, but People’s Temple actually did it.” With this message already in hand, Jones appealed himself to this large congregation of people, predominately black. In fact Jones was the first white man in Indianapolis history to adopt a black child. As the years rolled on, Jones was beginning to realize the growing hatred that resided in his hometown, in 1965, Jones decided to move his whole congregation to Ukiah, California because it was considered a “safe zone” in the event of a nuclear war, not to mention he felt that California was more racially tolerant.

While in Ukiah, the congregation, which was now referred to as members, worked long hard hours every single day, as members their mission was to feed the poor by growing and selling produce and meats. They sold what they grew to make money for the church’s charitable cause. One of their main focuses was to house the elderly. Jones felt that all this hard work would lead to something big. Members usually donated all of their prized possessions to Jones, because the concept of People’s Temple was to live communally where everyone would share in the wealth.

In 1971, Jones created a congregation in San Francisco, as well as one a year later in Los Angeles. According to many, these church services were always full of energy. In fact during many of the services, people who were disabled or had a serious injury were often cured through “healings”, in which these people were just able to just get up and walk around the church a couple times with the loud, ear piercing cheers surrounding this. It was later found out that these people who were disabled or injured were actually some of Jones’s perfectly healthy secretaries.

As soon as more people heard of the People’s Temple, Jones began to criticize Christianity and the bible for what it was. He felt the bible was ruled by white men who felt that they could control women and other people who were not white. During many of the services, Jones preceded to throw the bible on the floor and say, “No one from heaven has struck me down.” Jones always preached the “divine principle” and that love and socialism should go hand in hand, Jones referred to God as a “Sky God” or “Buzzard God”.

In 1972, Lester Kinsolving, a reporter from the San Francisco Examiner first exposed Jones for what he was saying and doing in the church. Once Jones was alerted on what was going on, he took this issue to all the major newspapers in California and argued with each one of them for his First Amendment rights. Once he won those battles, the expose-style reports were immediately stopped. By this time Jones had let everyone in the congregation know not to escape Peoples Temple, or even try. In 1973, that did not stop a group of eight people from leaving, as soon as it was found out these people escaped, a large search party was sent to look for them. While the group of people were never found, Jones became furious. Around the same time, reports were beginning to come out of public beatings inside the church, as well as women being forced to strip nude. According to one source, there were ten to fifteen counselors that usually circled around the church during the church services, as well when they were working and how they interacted with others. The counselors would usually take notes of what they saw, and if they saw something that was wrong or out of the ordinary, they would report what they saw to Jones. Whatever complaint Jones was given about someone, he would call that person out in front of the whole congregation. If the person were an elderly person, he would not dare do anything due to the proper respect he gave to them. This same source recalled a time when one of the counselors saw a younger woman receiving a foot rub from one of the elderly members. Once Jones heard this, he was beside himself. The next Wednesday, which in the temple was referred to as “punishment day”, he called this lady out in front of everyone and he cursed at her saying, “Who the (heck) are you to get a foot rub from this elderly black woman!” After all the ranting, Jones preceded to grab her by the neck and choke her. Jones’s teachings did not mirror his personal life; he had relations with several church members, despite being married.

A year later in 1974, Jones leased 3,800 acres of land in Guyana. He began to call this land Jonestown. Jones felt the creating Jonestown would be a “social paradise” and as a way to get away from the media scrutiny that had already to begin to follow him. According to FBI files, during this time Jones began purchasing large amounts of cyanide from the United States. He claimed that the cyanide was going to be used for the animals. Once Jones had purchased the land, he sent a work crew to this land to clear the jungle and build cottages making it possible for the members to live over there. After a few incidents of members leaving the church, as well as families becoming weary of all the stories that were being tossed around, a group of relatives known as the “Concerned Relatives” began a series of meetings where they would write a series of letters to the Secretary of State, as well as the Guyanese government, in fact these relatives traveled to Washington D.C., in hopes of an investigation being started. Soon after, this got the attention of California Congressman Leo Ryan and his aide Jackie Speier.

In August of 1978, aunt Pearl was given her departure date similar to others who left before her. “I was really sad that she left. I always hugged my auntie, but the final time she left I was angry. I hoped not hugging her would have her know how hurtful it was that she was leaving me. But something told me I would never see her again,” my mom had said. A lot of people in my family did not want her to go as well, they had also heard all of the stories that surrounded Jones and his temple. Regardless, my aunt attended many of the services, plus she was working with the kids in the nursery. In her mind going to Jonestown was her opportunity to finally have a child.
The Beginning of the End

Throughout 1976 and 1977, more questions arose about what was going on in the church, and how members were being treated. Several investigative reports about this were published, which displeased Jones and threatened his supposed good intentions and reputation, Jones was appointed by then San Francisco Mayor Harvey Milk to a Board of Supervisors position. So any negative press was a threat to him. Milk on Jones’s behalf contacted President Jimmy Carter, giving his support of Peoples Temple and thwarts his further investigations. All the questions and anxiety from the former members and families of the members had led up to New West Magazine doing an investigative article into what was really going on behind the scenes in the temple, which prompted Jones’s early departure to Guyana.

In Guyana, Jones believed he escaped any legal charges, but that was not the case. By 1978, most of the members had arrived and it was overcrowded and not the paradise they believed it to be. Some members were working much harder than ever before, “there was a lot of work to be done, rations were short,” McGehee said. Members wanted to leave and return to the United States. This plus impending visits from Congressman Ryan sent Jones over the edge. He grew increasingly paranoid, and dependent on prescription drugs.

On November 18, 1978 Jones had enough. He ordered the mass murder of all his members, children first, and he forced everyone to drink a cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. If people did not want to do that, or they were to be injected with the same cyanide solution, or they were shot to death by armed guards. Jones elected not to die the way everyone else died; he had one of his armed guards to shoot him in the head. There were few who were able to escape, a couple of people left with a large suitcase filled with money. The aftermath was brutal. “I was watching channel 5 and there was a headline ticking across the bottom of the screen saying, ‘Dead bodies found stacked on top of each other in Guyana’, my mom was in the kitchen and I asked her ‘Mom isn’t Aunt Pearl in Guyana?’ My mom replied ‘Yes, why?’ Then when I told her what I saw she was really shocked. Then everyone else that was in the house all sat together in front of the TV as well, we finally saw news coverage of what was going on. Then we called family and friends from out of state, and we asked them if they heard anything on their local news. When we finally saw the first pictures, we couldn’t believe it. The whole time I was really praying that auntie was all right," mom said. The aftermath for Tim Carter, and Steven Jones, son of Jim Jones, was brutal as well; they were arrested and placed in a holding cell for a couple of days. When they were finally released, they were forced to go to the very same village where everything ended. The bodies were still stacked on top of one another, and they were forced to put identification tags on only anyone they knew. The aftermath for a lot of survivors was rough as well. Some turned to drug and alcohol abuse, some lost their faith in God altogether, and some just wanted to get Jonestown out of their minds. The aftermath for families of the victims was hard as well, families did not want to be associated with those who died, and it was an embarrassment to them.

In an interview with Stephen, I asked him several questions regarding this terrible day. Stephen, who was a basketball player on the basketball team for Peoples Temple, was actually in Georgetown that day playing a basketball tournament. He did not agree with anything his father was telling the members from the very beginning. According to Stephen, “We were still only in town because I had represented the team in flatly refusing Dad’s direct order to return to Jonestown.” According to Stephen, Jones had demanded that Stephen return to Jonestown on the 18th, Stephen did not know why his dad wanted him back there. Since Stephen was playing basketball, I also asked him if, playing basketball was a way to escape Jonestown. “Playing was a way to channel and release frustrations,” he said. Some of the members who were in Jonestown saw there were problems long before November 18th. Moore recalls a time when her sister Annie sent her a letter praising all of the investigation into Jonestown, just six months before the tragedy. I asked McGehee if more could have been done to stop Jonestown, “I don’t think so, the U.S. government had no jurisdiction in Guyana, they did not have any authority.” When asked how it feels when the word “cult” is tossed around, he replied, “’cult’ is something you don’t belong to. It’s such a loaded word, like ‘terrorist’. As of November 16, 2008 the “The Mary Pearl Willis Foundation”, which was created by my mom, has created the very first permanent memorial. The memorial is a wall with 918 people who have been identified to have died in Jonestown that horrible day. According to many documents, there are up to 400 other bodies, mainly children, who are unidentified. Those unidentified are buried in mass graves at Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, California.

For those who elect to call Jonestown a cult, why? Why would people who just wanted a place to belong in an America where they treated people of any color unfairly, be considered a bunch of “psycho people?” In Novembers’ past, those involved have been forced to do what any other person would do, when any tragedy strikes, whether its 1 person or up to 1000, and that is “overcome”.