Jim Jones was born in 1931 in Indiana, US but quickly moved to Lynn located in Massachusetts. As a young boy the people who he grew up with said to have found him quite odd and strangely paranoid for a child. Jones was obsessed with death and thought that lives deserved proper burials, he would often have funerals for small animals. His father was an alcoholic and his mother worked all the time to support the family so often Jim would be alone. one day a neighbour invited him to church and Jim adore it, he looked up to the preachers as role models and one day wanted to become one.

Sadly Jim’s parents got a divorce and Jim moved with his mother to Richmond, Indiana and later graduated in 1948, he got married a year later to Marceline Baldwin and they adopted a lot of kids of mixed races. As Jim was extremely passionate about racial equality.

In 1952 he became a student pastor in the summerset south side Methodist church but he left because he wasn’t allowed to invite different races into the church. In 1956 he organised a religious convention which later led to him starting his on church called the people’s temple. People loved his interracial church movement.

Jim moved to California,Ukiah in 1970 and he sermon switched to preach against Christianity, he had thousands of church members and managed to convince people to sell their homes and donate the money to the church which he created a few community homes for those people to live in. People quit their jobs to volunteer to the church although they got paid they often gave the money back into the church on Jim Jones request.

Jim Jones

Jim Jones was charming and people though he had healing powers. He told his people that sex is selfish and that their energy should be used for the church he then tested his people’s loyalty by handing out punch and saying it was poison after they drank it, This would be considered foreshadowing for future events.

In 1974 Jones moved to San Francisco and he completely feared the government, that they would shoot him after all this is when Martin Luther King Jr got murdered. Jim started getting interested in politics which is when he started to receive death threats, he started to self medicate.

Members of the people’s temple stated that the church was going in the wrong direction and some even went to try and get an investigation started, Jim being paranoid about an investigation he moved everyone in his church to Guyana where he planned on starting a utopian society. Jonestown started with 500 members who were encouraged to send videos of how great Jonestown was to other members of the church to convince them to join. The popular grew to 900 people and Jones started to blackmail people into staying in Jonestown, although a lot of people wanted to leave, Jim forced people to work with little breaks saying it would improve the future of this failed utopia. People were a lot happier when Jones wasn’t around often singing and dancing. Jim punished the people of Jones town if they disobeyed him which would often be public to scare the other members. Which he sometimes went as far as beating people. He was caught raping a women on a bus, Jim had an extreme God complex. He was a dictator.

People’s families started to get worried and demanded an investigation into Jonestown. Congressman Leo Ryan, reporters and camera crew flew to Jonestown which caused Jim to freak out, he hosted a ceremony to welcome him, he convinced everyone to act happy though people slipped notes to the camera crew and congressman Ryan saying they were in need of help and needed to escape. The congressman confronted Jones about the notes which he claim was just people joking and that Jonestown wasn’t harming anyone and needed to be left alone.

Congressman Leo Ryan

The next day people continued to talk to the reporters and shared their want to leave Jonestown. Which Jones said he wasn’t holding anyone captive. Congressman Ryan was then attacked by a member of the people’s church so him and the media group headed to their plane to leave but was sadly shot at which resulted in the deaths of 4 people including Congressman Ryan Leo.

Jim knew he would get in trouble for the killers. He made a speech telling the people of Jonestown that the Government was after them and the only way to save themselves was mass suicide. He made Kool aid laced with cyanide and served it to everyone there. “ if we can’t live in peace we must die in peace.” He said it was the only way. A women stood up and begged Jim to let her leave that suicide wasn’t the only way out; she was shot. People Quickly realised that they didn’t have a choice and started drinking the Kool aid. People were also injected, forced to drink it or killed in other ways. Mothers even gave it to their children. After everyone had passed away Jim Jones then shot himself.

909 people died in that tragic day and only 5 people managed to escape. letters was found among those that died, asking us to learn about the history of Jonestown and how most of them truly didn’t want to die.