November 18, 1978 Guyana
What Happened in Jones Town?
Jonestown Massacre is biggest mass suicide that has been recorded in the human history, involving mass suicides/murders of 900 men, women, and children by ingesting Kool-aid that contained potassium cyanide. This devastating disaster occurred in the 1970s, when America went through tumultuous period where many people fought for equality of Women, African Americans,gays and lesbian and protested against ongoing war in Vietnam. In this radical era of civil right movement many people sought asylum for more peaceful and equal life. Jim Jones, the founder of the Jonestown successfully fulfilled the need of minorities, through Jonestown, where people lived under socialist and communist lifestyle that provided equality and unity.
Research Narrative
The People’s Temple was a religious group responsible for mass suicide that was created in 1955 by Jim Jones. Notorious religious leader Jim Jones was raised in a family where his mother was largely absent and his father, a war veteran lacked interest toward him. His parents absence lead him to spend more time in church, where he found himself talented in preaching and public speaking.
After years of an unsuccessful career after his graduation, he decided to enter a ministry. Working in a poor area of Minneapolis, he got the reputation of an evangelist and “healer”. When his church member disagreed with his goal of creating a racially integrated service, he created his own group called the Wing of Deliverance, which was later known as the People’s Temple. Jim Jones seeked to spread messages of Christianity and communism through his religious community, and promote social equality, being a big believer in socialism, and a hater of capitalist states.
His People’s Temple was a huge success and with a large group of followers Jim Jones moved the group to Guyana, South America. There, Jones’ paranoia reached an all time high due to his drug abuse and he started arranging a mass suicide, as well as forcing people to give up their worldly possessions and giving harsh punishments to those who disobeyed, such as beatings, and dangling children into wells headfirst. Although Jones had trouble with drugs and was possible a schizophrenic, he preached against them and banned them from his settlement. A congressman, Leo Ryan, went to Jonestown with a group of 18 people, as people in California were worried about those living in Jonestown. Though they were treated amicably, when the group left, several people from Jonestown fired at them, killing 5 people, including Ryan, and injuring 11 more. Concerned that the United States would never let them get away with this, Jones initiated his mass suicide, preferring to die in what he considered a peaceful, respectful death, than be dealt with by the US government.
With the power he held over his people, Jim Jones convinced over 900 people to drink Kool Aid laced with cyanide and a variation of prescription drugs. Parents were forced to give their children the drink first and if they refused they were injected with drugs or shot at. After people began to die, Jones and others went around checking pulses and shooting anyone with a heartbeat, before dying themselves. Jones died through a bullet to the head, though whether he shot it or someone else did is still unknown. A few people were able to escape during all the commotion by running into the forest but are still haunted by Jim Jones.
Days after the suicide/murder had occurred, bodies remained at the site as reporters, investigators, photographers, and all sorts of people swamped to Jonestown to cover the news. There they found a video recording Jones had taken of the whole event, as well as a multitude of rotting corpses.