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Jones Jim1931 Biography

American cult figure, the Leader of The Peoples Temple. In 1977, he led his followers from San Francisco to Guyana. Jones was known as a manic-depressive who suffered from paranoia and delusions. However, he held an incredible power of persuasion and led nearly 1000 people, including himself, to a mass suicide on 19 November 1978, Georgetown, Guyana. Jones mother, Lynetta Jones, was a young anthropologist trying to decide between her career or marriage. A dream of her dead mother telling her she would bear a son who would right the wrongs of the world helped make her decision. She was convinced that her child was a messiah. His father, James Thurmond Jones, was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and died when Jim was young. His mother worked in a factory and kept the vision of her dream. Jim was raised a Methodist and played pretend-church as a child. At seven, a neighbor recalled he would lace his speeches with calls for strict discipline. His high-school classmates recall that he was popular but not a leader, noticing his growing interest in religion. After graduating from Richmond High School, near Lynn, Indiana, Jones had ten years of on-and-off studies before receiving his BA degree from Butler University. He worked part-time as a hospital orderly, also becoming pastor of a Methodist church in Indianapolis, Indiana where his strong views on integration made him a target of bigots. Disenchanted with the Methodist faith, he created his own church, the Community National Church. By 1956, he opened the first Peoples Temple in Indianapolis. The Temple formed a soup kitchen, an employment desk to help people find jobs, and a nursing home. His mothers dream seemed to be self-fulfilling. In 1961, Mayor Boswell appointed Jones as director of the Indianapolis Human Rights Commission. Soon he was noticed for his power to relate to people and for building their self-esteem. He was also beginning to demand fierce personal loyalty from his followers and flexing his capitalist muscle by setting up several corporations, which profited under religious nonprofit protection. Soon he was disparaging traditional biblical tenets, demanding that his religious philosophies be followed instead. Stating his belief that a nuclear holocaust was coming, he moved his family to what he considered a safe spot in April 1962, a Brazilian city 250 miles north of Rio de Janeiro. He tried his brand of evangelizing but did not meet with the success he had attained in the U.S. He visited Guyana in 1963, where his first vision of a remote utopian settlement was formed. His increasing fears and paranoia took him home to Indiana with a determination to make money and a newly found gift of extreme exaggeration. He moved the Temple to northern California, near Ukiah in 1965. There he built a new flock using fraudulent "healing" performances to win worshipers and encouraged members to inform on spouses or children who transgressed his rules of loyalty. A hierarchy of trusted members formed, ones who would eventually help carry out his last order for mass suicide. Members money and possessions were to be freely given to Jones at his command, along with sexual favors. In 1971 Jones purchased new temples in San Franciscos Fillmore district and in Los Angeles. His public relations talents brought him political clout in 1975 when he delivered a bloc of votes helping liberal Democrat George Moscone win the mayoralty race. Offered a seat on the Citys HumaRead less