The Road to Jonestown

by Jeff Guinn

  But such things would never happen there. Indianapolis blacks were, at core, Hoosiers, inherently nonconfrontational. Compared to African Americans in most other large American cities, they were now ahead in matters of civil rights. An unprecedented number of liberal politicians recently elected to state and city office was responsible. In just a few more years, more traditional conservatism among Indiana’s vast white voting majority would reassert itself, and most of the 1962–1963 civil rights advances would be negated. For now, current progress denied any opportunity for Jim Jones to assume his former position of city influence and leadership. It hurt, and not only because Indianapolis had moved on with integration without him. Previously, his most effective means of recruiting new church members from among Negro citizens was that the Temple could help them get something in life as well as after death. Pastor Jones would intercede for members with city officials, utility companies, banks, and shop owners. Now Jones was no longer the only or even the most convenient conduit. Human Rights Commission staff had all the legal clout necessary to help. Jones wasn’t potential Temple members’ only option.

  Then came additional humiliation. Jones had to move the Temple to a smaller building after the old one suddenly seemed cavernous—now there were sometimes fewer than a hundred congregants on Sundays. Dwindling attendance reflected poorly on Jones’s reputation, his power. People had to be reminded of how important he was. His fury and frustration manifested themselves in several ways.

  Jones retained his radio program, 4:45–5:00 p.m. on Indianapolis station WIBC. Archie Ijames had substituted as host while Jones was in Brazil. Jones reclaimed the microphone. Where he’d earlier quoted scripture and urged loving brotherhood, now he spat out angry diatribes dismissing the Bible as propaganda and suggesting himself as a modern-day prophet. This was hardly the sort of soothing message expected by the station and its listeners. Jones was warned to change his tone, and when he didn’t, WIBC removed him from the airwaves.

  Still determined to have an audience beyond Temple membership, Jones returned to the regional revival circuit. His message was changed there, too. Ably abetted by Patty Cartmell, he still amazed audiences with miraculous mind-readings and prophecies. But now his sermons bypassed biblical references almost entirely. Instead, he talked socialism, though he was careful not to specifically identify his subject as such. Jones’s message was clear: only full equality for all was acceptable. For the ever-swelling ranks of the oppressed, anyone disagreeing was the enemy. Change was coming. Better to welcome it than stand against it.

  In Sunday services, in meetings with associate pastors and other Temple loyalists, Jones went further. The less he felt recognized and appreciated by the outside world, the grander he proclaimed himself to the followers remaining to him. He unnerved some by denigrating the Bible. He declared that it was “the root of all our problems today. Racism is taught in it. Oppression is taught in it.”

  There was more. Previously, Jones had shared his belief in reincarnation with only a few discreet confidants. Though he’d identified himself as a great man in previous lives, he’d never claimed the ultimate identity. Now, he did. Upon his return to the Temple pulpit, Jones curtly dismissed the concept of a “Sky God” who promised eternal life in exchange for belief but ignored the sick and suffering. The real Christ or God, Jones preached, existed as a mind or spirit that could choose a host body, becoming an Earth God capable of bestowing immediate blessings on the living.

  Jones usually stopped just short of declaring himself to be God. But from that time forward, he led his congregation toward that conclusion. A sermon he delivered in 1975 offers the best example: “The mind that was in Christ Jesus is in me now. As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. If you think you see a man, a man I am. But if you think you see God, God is here. What matters is, ‘Who do you say I am?’ ”

  It is impossible to know whether Jones gradually came to think that he was God’s earthly vessel, or whether he came to that convenient conclusion precisely at this low point in his career. Either way, if Jones already believed he’d previously lived as the Buddha and other extraordinary incarnations, it was an almost inevitable progression for such an ambitious man to eventually place his current self on the highest possible level. Encouraged as a child by his mother, who believed in reincarnation and the transmigration of souls, Jones had felt certain all of his life that he was special, marked for great things even before birth. As an adult, he had the example of Father Divine, who claimed to be God in human form and was worshipped by thousands of followers as such. Father Divine, in Jones’s opinion, was misguided—Jones said as much in the pamphlet he wrote about the Peace Movement, noting that “Rev. Divine [is] merely an instrument who [has] done good work.” But Jones, too, wanted to be worshipped, and that desire meshed perfectly with the concept of reincarnation and his newly announced divinity in human form. Where Father Divine was mistakenly presumptuous, Jones was simply acknowledging fact. Jim Jones was God or Christ on Earth, meaning that whatever he wanted was right and must be done. Jones still believed in the virtues of socialism and was dedicated to lifting up the oppressed. But he would no longer have the capacity to learn from mistakes, because he didn’t believe that, as a superior incarnation, he could make any. In the future, anything that didn’t work exactly according to Jones’s desires would be the fault of flawed followers or implacable enemies—and, with each passing day, Jones became more convinced that he had enemies everywhere.

  Jones picked his spots, avoiding outright declarations of actual divinity in non-Temple settings. But he expected his closest associates to acknowledge him as godlike and this troubled some of them, Ross Case and Archie Ijames especially. It took Ijames some time to come around. Case never did. But other Jones followers either believed immediately—they were certain they’d seen him demonstrate otherwise inexplicable powers—or, like Jack Beam, didn’t care what outrageous claims Jones made about being God. The socialist principles that he shared with them were what mattered. Whatever Marceline Jones thought, she kept to herself. If she didn’t believe in her husband’s divinity, she still saw him as a man of special, God-driven purpose, and never wavered in her public support.

  It was a critical turning point. Jones’s time in Indianapolis was almost up. He recognized that. Father Divine took his flock from New York to Philadelphia and grew stronger because of it. Peoples Temple had to relocate somewhere Jones could regain social and political influence while retaining those loyal followers he had left. There were perhaps a hundred in all. Where he chose to take them was influenced by something other than thwarted ambition in Indiana, or Jones’s belief that, as God, his people would thrive wherever he chose to lead them.

  In later years, most who had been associated with Jones and survived speculated on his honesty about anything. He exaggerated and lied so much—perhaps he never told the truth. Jones’s ultimate choice of destination proves that, at least occasionally, he did. His fear of nuclear holocaust was genuine. The Earth God did not believe himself immune to death by nuclear explosion or fallout. Had Jones’s only intention been to move the Temple to a place where he could attain increased fame and power, there were obvious choices. Because of his appearances on the regional revival circuit, Jones was already established as a potential force in several major Midwest cities seething with racial unrest, Detroit and Chicago prominent among them. It would have been relatively easy to relocate there. Jones knew how to insert himself in controversy, how to exploit black frustration and confront white opposition. He’d been relatively restrained in Indianapolis. In Chicago or Detroit, he could indulge in full-throated advocacy.

  Instead, he returned to the list of ostensibly fallout-free possibilities in Esquire. Belo Horizonte had discouraged Jones, at least for a time, from the prospect of foreign escape. Of the nine cities and regions listed, only one was in America:

  “The safest place in the United States is Eureka, California, a landlocked port of nearly 30,000 people 283 miles no
rth of San Francisco and more than 100 miles north of the nearest [nuclear attack] target. Eureka is the principal city along the lightly settled, dry stretch of California’s coast. It generally escapes damage in the war-game attacks because it is west of the Sierras and upwind from every target in the United States. . . . Eureka is on the safest stretch of the continent’s West Coast.”

  Jones’s best chance to build a massive following and achieve national rather than local fame could be found in a major city. If he wanted one in California that offered plenty of opportunities to plunge into the vanguard of nationally reported racial conflict, Los Angeles was the perfect choice. It would soon explode in riots in its Watts ghetto. San Francisco was a less obvious, but still ripe, possibility to acquire and exert civil rights leadership. Its minority neighborhoods were being gradually eradicated in deliberate fashion by city planners. Eureka, with a population of thirty thousand that included few minorities, didn’t offer the same option. But it was supposed to be safe from fallout, and it was in California.

  Jones sent scouts ahead. Jack and Rheaviana Beam relocated to Hayward, an Oakland suburb. Jones didn’t completely discount the allure of San Francisco and its surrounding communities. Ross Case settled 150 miles north of Hayward in Ukiah, the Mendocino County seat. Ukiah was about halfway between Eureka and San Francisco, but still beyond the hypothetical Bay Area fallout zone.

  While he waited for their reports, Jones tied up a professional loose end. Though Peoples Temple had been affiliated with the Disciples of Christ since 1959, Jones was still not ordained as a denominational pastor. He’d earned the college degree required, but left for Brazil immediately afterward. Now, Jones wanted that Disciples certification, a credential that would help establish him in a new California location. So he made formal application, and a Disciples vetting process followed.

  The critical aspect of the Disciples’ investigation into Jones’s worthiness was an eight-member Ordination Council appointed to look into his background. Four members were associated with the Disciples. Four more would represent the secular perspective. Despite his irregular approach to Christian ministry, the Disciples wanted Jones confirmed as a candidate just as much as he did. Under his leadership, Peoples Temple was a shining example of a service-based church that the denomination wanted all of its congregations to emulate. Rejecting Jones would have been paramount to rejecting the worthy accomplishments achieved by Peoples Temple under his guidance. So the eight-member council was stacked from the start. Its four nondenominational members included Archie Ijames, Jones’s associate pastor at the Temple (the church was a Disciples affiliate, but Ijames was not ordained in the denomination); Walter Baldwin, Jones’s father-in-law; Harold Cordell Jr., a member of one of the Temple’s most loyal families; and Ed Malmin, the veteran missionary who had befriended and mentored Jones in Brazil. The council vote in Jones’s favor was a formality, and in an 8 p.m. Temple service on February 16, 1964, he was formally ordained as a Disciples minister. In Temple services during the weeks immediately afterward, Jones technically followed Disciples guidelines but gave them his own twist. When communion was required, Temple congregants were offered coffee and donuts rather than wine and wafers. The newly certified Reverend Jones then reminded them that coming together was the real communion, not the snacks. If denominational administrators in the Disciples regional office were informed, they chose to ignore it.

  Jones began taking inspection visits to California himself, sometimes with other Temple confidants and at least once bringing along his family. Everyone loved San Francisco, but Jones couldn’t suppress his fears that it would soon disappear in a mushroom cloud. Ukiah looked more promising. It was some distance inland from Mendocino County’s scenic coast, with surrounding hills and mountains that blocked even a trace of ocean breeze. But Joe Phillips, who’d spent part of his life farming, pointed out that crops grew well in the area. If the Temple could get access to land, its members could grow enough food to be nearly self-sufficient. That appealed to Jones, who’d been impressed by the Promised Land farms of Father Divine’s Peace Movement.

  A propitious meeting in the restaurant of Ukiah’s Palace Hotel sealed the deal. Jones, Phillips, and Jack Beam overheard a conversation between a half dozen men and women at a nearby table. They were board members of Christ’s Church of the Golden Rule, a Ukiah-based social gospel group that had broken away from a larger organization and eventually settled on sixteen thousand rolling acres in the hills just above Ukiah. Jones and the other two Temple members introduced themselves. After some conversation, the Golden Rule elders invited their new acquaintances to visit their community. The trio was greatly impressed—here were people who lived their faith as they pleased, essentially self-supporting and not subordinate to any larger, overseeing organization. To Jones, this was undoubtedly a predestined opportunity. He proposed to the Golden Rule leaders that they consider allowing Peoples Temple to join them. Most members of the Ukiah group were older. Due to age and other attrition, they now numbered about two hundred. Adding young, enthusiastic newcomers from Indianapolis would provide new energy for continued growth of the service-oriented faith that members of the Temple and Golden Rule shared. An understanding was reached: if Jones brought his followers out to Ukiah, they could immediately begin worshipping in the Golden Rule settlement as a separate faith-based group. If, over a period of time, Temple members proved compatible, a merger might be considered. But Temple members couldn’t move onto Golden Rule property immediately upon arrival. They’d have to live in Ukiah or other surrounding towns, and find jobs in the community.

  Jones pronounced himself not only satisfied, but thrilled. He promised the Golden Rule elders that he and his followers would stay in contact and relocate soon. Jones didn’t mention that it was his intention to eventually become the sole leader of the new, consolidated group. At this first negotiation and many times in the months ahead, Jones insisted to his new friends that he would gladly serve as their humblest member. But he made his true intentions clear to Temple associates. Of course, he would become leader. It was his destiny; it was his right.

  Ross Case was deeply troubled by how the others deferred not only to Jones’s ambition, but to his sense of himself as godlike. In March 1965, after Jones returned to Indiana to prepare for California relocation, Case wrote to him, explaining why he could no longer be his follower. As a Christian, he couldn’t in good conscience “submit my mind completely to the mind of Jimmy.” He would continue to support Peoples Temple projects as a friend but also as a nonmember: “I will not work on a religious basis under any circumstances where I cannot work in the name of Jesus for his glory.” Case anticipated a clean, friendly break. He’d continue living and working in Ukiah, enjoying an ongoing relationship with Temple members there. Jones saw Case’s decision as betrayal, and made other plans for him.

  But those had to wait. Jones’s current problem was convincing all remaining Temple members to come with him to a backwater outpost in California. Many had never traveled beyond the Midwest or even Indiana. To them, Ukiah was the equivalent of a small town in a foreign country. While several dozen Temple followers were eager to go—they believed their leader when he said it was best for them—others were reluctant. Jones had promised Golden Rule a substantial influx of potential new members. He meant to deliver one, and that required all his considerable persuasive powers.

  Even when Temple membership had been at its height, Jones made a point of having a personal relationship with each follower. Jones remembered everything that was shared, every secret fear, every confessed longing or sin. In fall 1964, those remaining were either longtime members or else joined after seeing Jones perform miracle healings at revivals. These were the followers he knew best, and he exploited that knowledge. Most had benefited personally from something Jones had done on their behalf. Perhaps it was intercession with a utility company, or placing an elderly, penniless relative in one of the Temple nursing homes and not charging them. Originally, these
acts of kindness had been presented as simple obedience to Christian principles. But Jones kept careful track of every favor done. Now he reminded those he’d assisted that it was selfish to belong to a church only to get something. Giving back was required, too. Jim Jones and Peoples Temple had been there in their times of need. They must step forward and make what might initially seem to be a sacrifice, moving to a place they didn’t know and didn’t want to go to. Jones promised that their lives would be better in California, that everyone would work together to achieve the kind of equality that would inspire the rest of the world. Meanwhile, it was time to repay what Peoples Temple and Jim Jones had unselfishly done for them.

  In other instances, Jones skillfully calculated what individual enticement would be most effective. Elderly members who suffered greatly from Indiana’s freezing winters and blast furnace summers were told of Ukiah’s Eden-like climate. Advocates of social change were reminded of the stultifying “get along, go along” attitude embedded in Indianapolis tradition. In California, there was greater opportunity to make progressive things happen. Women trying to free themselves and their children from abusive relationships were told that it was easier at greater distance. Tired of cramped ghetto life with escape impossible thanks to prohibitive housing costs anywhere else in Indianapolis? Here was a chance to enjoy living in the bucolic countryside. However someone wanted to change his or her life, Jones promised that Mendocino County in California offered the perfect opportunity.

  Jones’s overriding means of persuasion remained the same. Nuclear war was coming. The destruction of Indianapolis was assured. Those who didn’t get out would perish horribly there. In 1961, Jones claimed to have experienced a vision that the attack would come on the sixteenth of some month—he couldn’t be certain of a specific year and date. Now, he was: Russia would launch its nuclear attack in July 1967. Come with Jones to Northern California and live, or stay in Indianapolis and die.