A Feast of Documentaries

(4 of 8)

About Jim Jones, a childhood friend recalled, "There was something not quite right. He was obsessed with religion. He was obsessed with death." But he always had the spellbinders gift of bending people to his will, which meshed strangely with his seemingly progressive, inclusive social agenda. Paraphrasing Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, Jones proclaimed, "Wherever there are people struggling for justice and righteousness, there am I." One of his early churches, in Indianapolis in 1953, was fully interracial when that wasnt cool. Moving to California, he established the Peoples Temple, which grew from 81 members in 1966 to thousands a few years later.

Predominantly but not overwhelmingly black, Jones faithful didnt simply join his church; they became its complete dependents and indentured slaves. They received medical and dental care (when Jones or his board approved it) while they turned their paychecks over to the Temple, receiving a weekly allowance of $5. Jones stoked and coveted their devotion: "if you want me as your God, Ill be your God."

His charisma did not go unnoticed by political potentates, in California (Jerry and Willie Brown sang his praises) and Washington (Walter Mondale and Rosalyn Carter appeared with him). For a time, he was head of San Franciscos Housing Authority. But the whispers about his predatory sexual appetite (which devoured parishioners of both sexes) and his reluctance to let disaffected members leave the fold caught the attention of the authorities. Jones moved the Temple to the Guyanan jungle, out of which his flock built an impressive village, Jonestown, housing thousands of Temple worshipers and their families. In a newsreel clip, Jones shows off the stocks of food he has amassed: meats, vegetables, Kool Aid

It all came down in November.1978, when Congressman Leo Ryan and his staff visited the Temple. After a days investigation of Jonestown, Ryan announced that he found many people "who thought this was the best thing that had ever happened to them." Before he was to leave the next morning, several members slipped notes to Ryan, saying they wanted to leave but were forbidden to. He agreed to take a few of the disaffected with him — and was shot dead as he attempted to board the plane.

That afternoon, Jones poured out nearly a thousand cups of Kool Aid laced with cyanide and, in an excruciating parody of the Eucharist, told the faithful to take and drink. They were committing, he said, "an act of revolutionary suicide, protesting the conditions of an inhumane world." In the detritus of the ensuing carnage, a note was "If nobody understands, it matters not, I am ready to die now. Darkness settle on Jonestown on its last day on earth."