About Jim Jones
James Warren Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was an American cult leader, preacher, and mass murderer who founded and led the Peoples Temple between 1955 and 1978. Jones and the members of his inner circle planned and orchestrated a mass murder–suicide that resulted in the deaths of over 900 people, including 304 children. He described the action as "revolutionary suicide", a term coined by Huey P. Newton. The people went to their deaths at the remote jungle commune which they had developed at Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978. U.S. congressman Leo Ryan, who had been visiting, was assassinated before his plane departed. The events at Jonestown had a defining influence on society's perception of cults. As a child, Jones had developed an affinity for Pentecostalism and a desire to preach. He was ordained as a Christian minister in the Independent Assemblies of God, attracting his first group of followers while participating in the Pentecostal Latter Rain movement and the Healing Revival during the 1950s. Jones's initial popularity arose from his joint campaign appearances with the movement's prominent leaders William Branham and Joseph Mattsson-Boze, and their endorsement of his ministry. Jones founded the organization that became the Peoples Temple in Indianapolis in 1955. In 1956, he began to be influenced by Father Divine and the Peace Mission movement. Jones distinguished himself through civil rights activism, founding the Temple as a fully integrated congregation. In 1964, he joined and was ordained a minister by the Disciples of Christ; his attraction to the Disciples was largely due to the autonomy and tolerance they granted to differing views within their denomination. In 1965, Jones moved the Temple to California. The group established its headquarters in San Francisco, where he became deeply involved in political and charitable activity throughout the 1970s. Jones developed connections with prominent California politicians and was appointed as chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission in 1975. Beginning in the late 1960s, reports of abuse began to surface as Jones became increasingly vocal in his rejection of traditional Christianity; He began promoting a form of anti-capitalism that he called "Apostolic Socialism" and made claims of his own divinity. Jones became progressively more controlling of his followers in Peoples Temple, which had more than 3,000 members at its peak. His followers engaged in a communal lifestyle in which many turned over all their income and property to Jones and leaders of Peoples Temple, who directed all aspects of community life. Following a period of negative publicity and reports of abuse at Peoples Temple, Jones ordered the construction of the Jonestown commune in Guyana in 1974; he convinced or compelled hundreds of his followers to live there with him. He claimed that he was constructing a socialist paradise free from the oppression of the United States government. By 1978, reports surfaced of human rights abuses and accusations that people were being held in Jonestown against their will. U.S. Representative Leo Ryan led a delegation to the commune in November of that year to investigate these reports. While boarding a return flight with some former Temple members who wished to leave, Ryan and four others were murdered by gunmen from Jonestown. Jones then ordered a mass murder-suicide that claimed the lives of 912 commune members; most of the members died by drinking Flavor Aid laced with cyanide. Those who resisted were forcefully injected with cyanide. Jones became progressively more controlling of his followers in Peoples Temple, which had over 3,000 members at its peak.
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