The Road to Jonestown
Page 58
The school district sent black teenagers to Crispus Attucks: Randy Roberts, But They Can’t Beat Us: Oscar Robertson and the Crispus Attucks Tigers (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society/Champaign, IL: Sports Publishing, 1999), p. 39.
who in 1943 were instrumental in forming the Indianapolis Citizens Council: Emma Lou Thornbrough, Indiana Blacks in the Twentieth Century, ed. Lana Ruegamar (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), pp. 112–13.
he decided to visit Community Unity: Ron Haldeman interview. After so many years, Reverend Haldeman could not recall the specific complaint and resulting letter at this first Community Unity service he attended. He offered the example of the old black woman and the electric company as one such incident, though it might have occurred during one of his later visits.
Marceline was pleased with Community Unity’s early success: Ibid. Haldeman and his first wife became close friends with Jim and Marceline Jones.
So Jones worked, too: Reiterman, Raven, p. 46; Avelyn Chilcoate and John Mutchner interviews.
But Jones wanted much more: Ron Haldeman interview.
TEN: PEOPLES TEMPLE
he was careful not to ask too much: Ron Haldeman interview.
Marceline described the scene: Denise Stephenson, Dear People: Remembering Jonestown (Berkeley: Heyday Books, 2005), pp. 10–11.
Jones was frustrated: RYMUR 89-4286-O-1-B-9.
Jones asked Haldeman for a favor: Ron Haldeman interview.
There were tax considerations, too: Scott Seay interview.
He told Marceline that real social change: RYMUR 89-4286-FF-1-95d.
She stopped mentioning: Avelyn Chilcoate interview.
He was an instant success: Moore, Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple, pp. 12–15; Rebecca Moore interview.
Joe and Clara Phillips, a white husband and wife: Garrett Lambrev, “Joe Phillips: A Reflection,” Jonestown Report 15 (November 2013), last modified March 20, 2014. Garrett was known as Garry to Peoples Temple members so that is the name I used in the book.
A strict protocol was observed: Juanell Smart and Jim Jones Jr. interviews. I discussed Jones’s healings with dozens of people, most of them former members of Peoples Temple who’d witnessed them in person. Juanell Smart was married to David Wise, who for some time served Jones as an assistant pastor and one of his chief accomplices in using chicken guts for faked cancer healings. Wise explained the whole process to Juanell, who many years later described it to me. Jim Jones Jr. confirmed the use of chicken guts and added an amusing story, which appears in a later chapter.
But a few surviving eyewitnesses: Garrett Lambrev interview.
Jones promised he would raise the money: RYMUR 89-4286-O-1-B-9.
the word “Temple” was carved in stone outside the building: Ron Haldeman interview.
ELEVEN: GAINING INFLUENCE
she had the critical background and skills: Ron Haldeman interview.
Jim Jones of Peoples Temple received much of the credit: Ibid.
the Joneses’ own home was renovated: Moore, Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple, p. 17.
Inspectors from the Marion County Welfare Department made regular visits: Scott Seay interview.
One who came away impressed after hearing Jones: Reiterman, Raven, pp. 50–53.
He noticed some weaknesses, too: Jim Jones Jr. interview.
the church opened a café: Moore, Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple, p. 17.
On its first day of operation: RYMUR 89-4286-BB-1B-Z-77.
When they screamed for “Here Comes Peter Cottontail”: RYMUR 89-4286-FF-I-95d.
For some parents: Juanell Smart interview.
“God is here on earth today”: Jill Watts, God, Harlem U.S.A.: The Father Divine Story (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), p. 48.
TWELVE: FATHER DIVINE
Though I studied dozens of articles and books and conducted several interviews about Father Divine, as I wrote this chapter I kept coming back to two sources. Peoples Temple and Black Religion in America, edited by Rebecca Moore, Anthony B. Pinn, and Mary R. Sawyer (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), was essential not only in helping me understand the parallels between Father Divine’s Peace Movement and Peoples Temple, but also certain elements of African American religion that informed Jim Jones’s ministry far beyond what he cherry-picked from Father Divine.
Information gleaned from God, Harlem U.S.A.: The Father Divine Story by Jill Watts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992) can be found in virtually every paragraph of this chapter. Specific references include pp. 1–5, 30, 31, 86, 105, 107–12, 113, 119, 125, 137, 153–59, 160–66, and 167–71. If, as I did, you find Father Divine fascinating, then I urge you to read Jill Watts’s book.
Jones’s visit extended for an entire day: Ron Haldeman interview.
It was the first of many: Ibid.
Max Knight, who’d become a reporter for Richmond’s daily newspaper: Max Knight interview.
The key, Jones believed: Ron Haldeman interview.
Jones published and distributed: California Historical Society, MS 4124, Box 1, Folder 10. This pamphlet was thirty-two pages long. The last time Father Divine is mentioned is on page 27. Jones never wanted his followers to forget who their actual leader was.
THIRTEEN: “ALL RACES TOGETHER”
Brown v. Board of Education was understood: David Halberstam, The Fifties (New York: Ballantine, 1994), pp. 428–41. This book is a masterful example of telling the essential stories of a decade in immensely readable form.
Black folks around the city took notice: Reiterman, Raven, p. 54.
It was a unique combination: Moore, Pinn, and Sawyer, eds., Peoples Temple and Black Religion in America, p. 152.
“His message was always very stark”: RYMUR 89-4286-HH-6-A-2.
Their furniture was a hodgepodge: Ron Haldeman interview.
A slumber party for the Temple kids: RYMUR 89-4286-FF-1-95-e.
Agnes had not proven to be the ideal child: Jim Jones Jr. interview.
It was Marceline who first proposed: Ron Haldeman interview.
in May 1959 there was a weekend outing to the zoo: Jim Jones Jr. interview.
it happened on the night that little Stephanie died: Ibid.
Case heard about Jim Jones: Reiterman, Raven, pp. 66–68.
To leadership in the Disciples denomination: Scott Seay interview. Historically, there are several branches of the Disciples of Christ; of these, the “Christian Church” is the most liberal, and the most attractive to and attracted by Jim Jones. I simply use “Disciples” or “Disciples of Christ.”
Best of all, from Jones’s perspective: Ibid.
The position was considered so nonprestigious: Moore, Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple, p. 17; Reiterman, Raven, pp. 68–69.
FOURTEEN: A MAN TO BE RECKONED WITH
blue-collar whites in Indianapolis enjoyed relative comforts: David Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals (New York: Scribner, 2002), p. 105.
Many believed that communists orchestrated: In Los Angeles, police officers attended mandatory seminars where lecturers insisted that this was true. Jeff Guinn, Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014), p. 114.
When Robert Welch founded the ultraconservative: Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus (New York: Nation Books, 2009), pp. 114–19.
the Indiana General Assembly passed legislation: Madison, A Lynching in the Heartland, p. 245.
Jones thought it was more important: Ron Haldeman interview.
Jones was offered a job at $25,000 a year: RYMUR 89-4286-BB-1B-Z-68; FBI Tape Q 775.
Jones received 55 percent of all collections taken: RYMUR 89-4286-A-36-c-12.
Through Peoples Temple he formed an employment service: Ron Haldeman interview.
Jones called on them there: Reiterman, Raven, p. 66. Reiterman writes that Jones failed
to impress the Muslims when he explained he had adopted a black child.
Jones wrote to the party leadership: California Historical Society, MS 4126, Box 3, Folder 12.
Marceline used chewing gum as bribes: Jim Jones Jr. interview.
Jones even used personal illness: RYMUR 89-4286-EE-1-I&J-73.
FIFTEEN: BREAKDOWN
Jim Jones met his childhood friend: Max Knight interview.
Sometimes he’d ask Ron Haldeman: Ron Haldeman interview.
When Jones absolutely had to be away on a Sunday: Ibid.
Jones held regular “corrective fellowship” sessions: Moore, Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple, p. 32.
In an undated, handwritten letter to Earl Jackson: RYMUR 89-4286-1099.
For Jones, the Disciples of Christ had two specific attractions: Scott Seay interview.
Observers from the Disciples regional office attended some Sunday services: Ron Haldeman interview.
Peoples Temple routinely misrepresented: I was allowed to study copies of the Disciples annual reports at the denomination’s seminary in Indianapolis. The falsifications are blatant.
he began incrementally revealing the considerable divide: Lambrev, “Joe Phillips: A Reflection.”
In 1961, many Americans lived in fear: Before his death in 2015, I conducted several interviews for this book with former U.S. speaker of the house Jim Wright. Speaker Wright spoke at length about “bomb paranoia” in America during the 1950s and 1960s.
After his election in November 1960: Richard Norton Smith, On His Own Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller (New York: Random House, 2014), p. 363.
Kennedy said Americans should be prepared: Perlstein, Before the Storm, pp. 142–43.
Jones offered details: Garrett Lambrev interview; Lambrev, “Joe Phillips.”
His only previous foreign trip had been to Cuba: Moore, Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple, p. 18.
Now he visited British Guiana: Reiterman, Raven, p. 77.
Jones applied for an unspecified job: California Historical Society, MS 4126, Box 3, Folder 12.
“Now a shift has come about”: Caroline Bird, “9 Places in the World to Hide,” Esquire, January 1962.
SIXTEEN: BRAZIL
Jones’s journey began inauspiciously: Garrett Lambrev interview; Reiterman, Raven, p. 78.
Sensing her dejection: Stephenson, Dear People, p. 59.
the Joneses rented a sparsely furnished: Bonnie Thielmann with Dean Merrill, The Broken God (Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 1979), p. 23. Thielmann’s memoir provides the best record of Jim Jones’s sojourn in Brazil.
It was in a Belo Horizonte post office: Ibid., pp. 19–22, 24–25, 27.
People were leaving: Moore, Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple, p. 19; Rebecca Moore interview.
Their family dinners were spare: Thielmann, The Broken God, p. 25.
For a while, Jack and Rheaviana Beam: Moore, Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple, p. 19; Reiterman, Raven, pp. 82–83.
In May 1963 Ed Malmin wrote: RYMUR 89-4286-FF-1-66.
As Jones told the story to his followers: RYMUR 89-4286-O-1-B-12 through 18.
Ed Malmin provided a solution: Thielmann, The Broken God, pp. 34–35.
he suspected Ijames and Case: Ron Haldeman interview.
SEVENTEEN: LOOKING WEST
Malmin found himself reduced: Reiterman, Raven, pp. 86–87.
state and local government had taken huge strides: James H. Madison interview; Thornbrough, Indiana Blacks in the Twentieth Century, pp. 169–70.
But such things would never happen there: Scott Seay and Juanell Smart interviews.
Jones had to move the Temple: Moore, Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple, p. 19.
WIBC removed him from the airwaves: RYMUR 89-4286-FF-I-95a.
“The mind that was in Christ Jesus”: Edith Roller Journal, 7/7/75, Jonestown Institute.
Ross Case and Archie Ijames especially: Reiterman, Raven, p. 93.
Jones sent scouts ahead: Ibid., p. 92.
a Disciples vetting process followed: Scott Seay interview.
the Disciples wanted Jones confirmed as a candidate: Ibid.
Temple congregants were offered coffee and donuts: Ron Haldeman interview.
Everyone loved San Francisco: Jim Jones Jr. interview.
A propitious meeting in the restaurant: Lambrev, “Joe Phillips”; RYMUR 89-4286-FF-I-96a through c.
Ross Case was deeply troubled: Reiterman, Raven, pp. 98–99.
Jones’s overriding means of persuasion: Ibid., pp. 94–95.
Jones preached a final Peoples Temple service: Ron Haldeman interview.
It was a jolly journey: Jim Jones Jr. interview.
A place that didn’t want them: Alan Swanson and Garrett Lambrev interviews.
EIGHTEEN: REDNECK VALLEY
Marceline Jones stunned a local banker: “Messiah from the Midwest,” Time, December 4, 1978.
Jones filed articles of incorporation: RYMUR 89-4286-A-31-a-5b, 5c, and 5d; RYMUR 89-4286-A-32-A.
Within days of his staff’s first inquiries: Dan McKee interview via email.
Temple members soon nicknamed their new home: Alan Swanson interview.
Later, some former Temple members decided: Teri Buford O’Shea interview. Later in life, she changed the spelling of her name from “Terri” to “Teri.” When I had several conversations with her in 2015, she was “Teri.” This accounts for the difference in spelling between the text and chapter notes.
“a level of planning and forethought”: Stephan Jones, Griot Institute, Bucknell University, April 10, 2013.
Temple members were assigned writing duties: Alan Swanson interview.
“for the gracious letter to my husband”: California Historical Society, MS 3800, Box 2, Folder 38.
“It’s hard to admit, but my father”: Colleen Rickabaugh interview.
NINETEEN: DEAD END
Lambrev also had a wide spiritual streak: Garry Lambrev interview.
The Jones family, out for a weekend drive: Jim Jones Jr. interview.
Jones also recruited: Stephenson, Dear People, p. 21; Garry Lambrev, “A Peoples Temple Survivor Remembers,” Jonestown Report 8 (November 2006), last modified March 6, 2014, Jonestown Institute; and Garry Lambrev, “Questions That Remain,” Jonestown Report 5 (August 2003), last modified March 14, 2014, Jonestown Institute.
Jones announced that the church would stage: Garry Lambrev interview.
In August 1966, he announced: Ibid.
In October, Jones interrupted: RYMUR 89-4286-1-I&J-2; Lambrev, “Joe Phillips”; Garry Lambrev interview.
Another disagreement in 1968: RYMUR 89-4286-1-96a.
Members became accustomed: Alan Swanson and Jim Jones Jr. interviews.
Judge Robert Winslow finished last: Robert L. Winslow went on to a distinguished career in private legal practice. In his most famous case, he successfully represented Doris Day in a fraud and malpractice suit that won the actress a $22.8 million settlement. Winslow died in 1996.
TWENTY: RESURRECTION
A colorful car caravan made the one-hundred-mile trip south: Garry Lambrev interview.
Jones instructed these followers: Alan Swanson interview.
A bus chugged into the fairgrounds parking lot: Garry Lambrev interview.
For those in the city’s black churches: David Talbot, Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love (New York: Free Press, 2012), p. 277.
congregants included county social service employees: Laura Johnston Kohl and Teri Buford O’Shea interviews.
This was the egalitarian, interracial culture that they’d yearned for: Garry Lambrev interview.
One day Jimmy Jr. came home looking puzzled: Jim Jones Jr. interview.
“ ‘Niggardly’ means to be treated cheatedly”: Tape Q 612, Jonestown Institute.
Now in California, he went to all that he could: Scott Seay interview.
Those that came enj
oyed a carefully orchestrated reception: There are many descriptions of how Temple members welcomed visitors in Redwood Valley. I found the best to be pp. 114–29 in Six Years with God: Life Inside Rev. Jim Jones’s Peoples Temple (New York: A&W Publishers, 1979) by Jeanne Mills, whose name when she joined the Temple was Deanna Mertle.
Few realized that the chatty Temple members visiting with them: Laura Johnston Kohl and Tim Carter interviews. Both joined Peoples Temple after 1969, but the methods of gleaning information from visitors for use by Jones remained essentially the same.
Garry Lambrev had joined Peoples Temple: Garry Lambrev interview.
TWENTY-ONE: CAROLYN
“One time when she and Stephan were visiting”: Janet L. Jackson interview.
“All of Marceline’s family felt like”: Avelyn Chilcoate interview.
There was one hiccup: Janice L. Beach interview. Marceline confided this only to her mother, but Charlotte Baldwin mentioned it to a few others, including Marceline’s longtime friend Janice.
Her new, crucial Temple role: Garry Lambrev and Alan Swanson interviews.
Jones decreed in a handwritten document: RYMUR 89-4286-1099.
Agnes wanted to please her parents: Laura Johnston Kohl and Jim Jones Jr. interviews.
Suzanne, who in 1969 was seventeen: Jim Jones Jr. interview.
Stephan was crown prince: Juanell Smart and Fielding McGehee interviews.
Carolyn announced to her parents: John V. Moore interview.
The Laytons attended several different services: Fielding McGehee and Rebecca Moore interviews.
Then, to her parents’ horror: John V. Moore and Rebecca Moore interviews.
The Moores decided not to criticize: John V. Moore interview.
Patty Cartmell took Carolyn aside: This was told to me by a former Temple member who witnessed the Patty Cartmell–Carolyn Layton conversation, and who insisted on not being identified.
Jones, always open with youngsters: Jim Jones Jr. interview; Stephan Jones, “Like Father, Like Son,” Jonestown Report 5 (August 2003), last modified March 14, 2014, Jonestown Institute.
Marceline wrote a note to Jones: Stephenson, Dear People, pp. 59–60.
TWENTY-TWO: A SOCIALIST EXAMPLE