(Editor’s note: This story originally appeared in 2013.)
The stories of apocalyptic cult leaders don’t often end well, especially for their most devoted followers. The story of an Indianapolis preacher named Jim Jones ended with the deaths of more than 900 people — most of them by suicide in Guyana, South America, on Nov. 18, 1978.
In the following days, Americans followed the news in horror out of “Jonestown” as photos and video from helicopters showed a panorama of dead bodies sprawled in the tropical sun.
Jones’ early ministry in Indianapolis
Born in the tiny Randolph County community of Crete, Jones graduated from Butler and was ordained by the Disciples of Christ in the early 1950s.
A 1953 Indianapolis Star story describes a dynamic 22-year-old minister at Somerset Methodist Church on the city’s Southside who worked with Marion County Children’s Guardian Home orphans. Jones organized softball games and picnics and arranged for the kids to attend his church on Sundays.
The following year Jones appeared in a story about a scheme to import monkeys from India and South America to sell as a church fundraiser. When the animals arrived, Jones balked at paying the $89 air-freight bill for the original seven and abandoned the monkeys in customs, the Star reported.
The People’s Temple
Jones started The People’s Temple in 1955. The congregation first met at 1502 N. New Jersey St. and then moved to a larger building at 975 N. Delaware St. The church ran a soup kitchen that fed hundreds every day as well as an employment assistance service in which church members helped the jobless find work and gave them clothes for job interviews.
Jones and his wife, Marceline, adopted eight children of multiple races. Healing the divide between blacks and whites was at the core of Jones’ message, and the People’s Temple had a diverse congregation. In 1961, Indianapolis Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones director of the city’s Human Rights Commission, which was created to address racial problems.
As the People’s Temple grew, Jones’ preaching became more fanatical. Some members left. Sometimes Jones performed faith healings and would pull “cancerous tumors” out of people’s mouths in front of the congregation. One former Temple member later told The Star the “tumors” were chicken livers Jones palmed like a magician plucking a coin out of a child’s ear.
In 1965 Jones and 145 Indianapolis residents boarded buses to move to California. Jones made his followers sign over to him their savings, cars, jewelry, furniture — even their Social Security checks.
The People’s Temple settled in a little town called Ukiah, about 150 miles north of San Francisco. Once Jones had told people to “just call me Jim.” Now he ordered his followers to address him as “the Prophet.” In 1972, The Star and the San Francisco Examiner collaborated on an investigation into the church that detailed reports of sex, faked healings, mass hyponosis and alleged abuse of members.
By the late 1970s, Jones moved his church to Guyana, South America.
The day it ended
In November 1978 California congressman Leo Ryan flew to Jonestown to investigate allegations made by relatives of some of Jones’ followers. There he invited anyone wanting to leave to join him on the flight to California. Several people took him up on the offer, but as they reached the airstrip, shooting erupted. Ryan was killed, along with several others.
Back at the compound, Jones gathered the faithful and told them it was time to die. They had rehearsed for this day as far back as when the church was in Indianapolis. They brought out big tubs in which they mixed cyanide in with a powdered grape. One by one they drank. Some had to be forced, and those who resisted were shot. A small few survived by fleeing into the jungle.Jim Jones died there, too, shooting himself after killing his wife and one of his children.
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Publish date : 2024-11-15 11:00:45
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