NickSampsell.com

Jim Jones

Written: May 29, 2006 at 2:26AM EST

School is finally winding down, you wouldn’t believe how glad I am. Anyways, for English class the divided the final into four parts

I. Research Paper. 3-5 pages typed. (Not bad)
II. Speech based on Research Paper. (I hate speeches)
III. Listening with Essay. (Not too bad, but definitly not fun.)
IV. Critical Lens Essay (I HATE THOSE!)

Anyways, on Wed. we started the Research Paper, the topic of which was

. . . choose one person in history (from the given list) and then using your research, determine whether the person was a great leader, a great tyrant, or both.

now it wasn’t really a bad topic, compared to some they have given out in past years. Out of the twenty somthing kids in the class, almost everyone wanted to choose Hitler. Then of course the teacher decides to do a “Pick your topic from a hat.” Everyone eager to get Hitler as their topic ran up and choose their person. A majority of the kids recieved people they knew were tyrants. From Hitler to Mussolini, and Stalin, then others recieved somewhat different topics, like Queen Elizabeth the I and Ghandi. In an attempt to avoid the crowd, I stayed back until they finished choosing. I went up and I recieved Jim Jones as my topic. At first I thought to myself, “Jim Jones? Who the hell is he?” I figured, there you go, you wait and you get stuck with a crappy topic, but after about 20 minutes of research, I learned that Jim Jones was a really messed up man.

According to the Encylopedia of Occultism and Parasychology,

Jim Jones, born on May 31, 1931 became the leader of the Peoples Temple 900. In 1978, he had convinced 914, men, women, children to commit suicude, by drinking Fla-Vor-Aid laced with cyanide.

The second I read that, I was amazed. How could one person convince almost 1000 people to willingly commit suicide? After reading that, I was compelled to learn more. Four encylopedia/reference book articles and a book later, I had learned a lot about the man who had founded one of the worlds most well know suicidal cults.

He founded the Peoples Temple in a rented store in Indianopolis, Indiana in 1953. He (at the time 17) and his wife (21) were married later that year after their first son was born. Shortly after, in an attempt to impress his black parishoners adopted 1 black child and 2 asian children, and created what he called “His Rainbow Family.” After a few years of normal congragation, he had convinced his followers that he could predict the future. At one meeting he said that a Nuclear War was upon them and only two places would be spared, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and Ukaih, California. He then convinced nearly 100 people to move from Indianapolis to Ukriah with him. There he founded the New Peoples Church, and in a fit of power, forced everyone to refer to him as Father or Dad whenever the spoke or referred to him.

Soon after he moved to San Francisco and there a newspaper did a report on the strange behaviors of the newly founded “People’s Temple.” Afraid of what was to come, he asked for a grant from Ghana (a newly formed Communistic Country, who at the time used it as a piece of propaganda saying people wanted to leave the capitalist America and come into socialism.) There Jones created “The Peoples Temple 900,” in his mind a utopia. But the truth was, it was far from it. Food quickly spoiled from the heat and people became sick.

After the camp was established, Jones began conducting “White Night” drills. In the drills, usually early in the morning, he would come onto the loud speakers and call everyone to the Center Pavilion. There they would drink Fla-Vor-Aid that they believed was laced with cyanide. They would spray it into the mouths of infants and small children and people would sit there. After about an hour when no one was sick, he would tell them it was just a drill and to start working. After about 40 of these drills, Jones believed Ghana was planning to attack them. He called over the loudspeaker to report to the pavilion and that this was NOT a drill. A few people, fearing the worst fled into the woods. Others went the the pavilion ready to face death. \r\n\r\nYou would think people would be in shock and be extremely frightened to commit suicide in such a manner, but they were not. In fact many of the citizens of the Peoples Temple 900 sang and danced before they drank their cyanide laced Fla-Vor-Aid.

A few weeks later, on another visit from the US, a grizzly sight was found. 914 people were lying around the camp rotting in the sun. It was awful, and then Jim Jones and his wife were found, not poisoned like the others, but shot through the head.

In my opinion, Jim Jones was a terribly distressed man, but no one questioned him. It’s amazing what some people will do for what they believe is the truth.