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James Warren "Jim" Jones
(May 13, 1931 - November 18, 1978) U.S.A.

Jim Jones

Cult leader

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Jones, the offspring of an inter-racial marriage, held degrees from Indiana University and Butler University. He began his career as a student minister in 1952 at a Methodist Church, and soon left when the church refused to allow African Americans in the service. He preached a "social gospel" of human freedom, equality and love, which required helping the lowliest of societies members.

Later on, this gospel became socialistic, or communistic in Jones' own view, and the hypocrisy of white Christianity was ridiculed while "apostolic socialism" was preached. Jones went so far as to encourage Temple members to call him "Dad" and "Father". He also asked his members to consider him the incarnation of Christ and of God.

He offered a place of refuge in his church for those suffering from social torment, including the lower class African Americans who at that time were in the midst of racial segregation. Jones claimed that he was a highly evoked black soul incarnated in a white body, and felt that only he could identify with the problems of the African Americans.

He believed in a utopian society consisting of racial integration and social and sexual equality. But, he believed that a cataclysmic period of race war, genocide, and nuclear war was nearing.

Jones was arrested in 1973 for soliciting an undercover police officer at a gay porno theater in Los Angeles. The charges were later dropped. After this fact, and an expose in the magazine New West that raised suspicions of illegal activities within the Temple, he moved some of the Temple membership to Guyana.

The Temple had leased almost 4,000 acres of dense jungle from the government. They established an agricultural cooperative there, called the "Peoples' Temple Agricultural Project." They raised animals for food, and assorted tropical fruits and vegetables for consumption and sale.

The settlement, called Jonestown, was a closed-in society of Jones' followers. In 1976 the first suicide drill was conducted within Jones' inner circle as a loyalty test. For at least a year prior to fateful November 18, 1978, revolutionary suicide was discussed publicly at Jonestown.

During the late 1970's, Jones had been abusing prescription drugs and appears to have become increasingly paranoid. Rumors of human rights abuses circulated. Jones reportedly took on partners of both sexes, yet ironically frequently proclaimed himself to be the only true heterosexual. Whatever Jim Jones commanded, the members did.

Tim Stoen, the Temple attorney and right-hand man to Jones left to form Concerned Relatives who claimed that Jonestown was being run like a concentration camp, and that people were being held there against their will.

Jones developed a belief called Translation in which he and his followers would all die together, and would move to another planet for a life of bliss.

They reach a consensus to commit group suicide. 914 died: 638 adults and 276 children. Some were shot, but most apparently lined up and took doses of cyanide poison mixed in a tub with flavored water. A witness said poison was spoon-fed to babies. Other victims appear to have been murdered by poison injection. A very few fled into the jungle and survived.

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