The new home, where Jones grew up, lacked plumbing and electricity. Their relatives purchased a shack for them to live in at the nearby town of Lynn. In 1934, in the midst of the Great Depression, the Jones family was evicted from their home for failure to make mortgage payments. His father's illness led to financial difficulties, which in turn resulted in intense marital problems between Jones' parents. He tried to augment his income by occasionally working on neighbourhood road repair projects because the military pension he earned due to his wounds was insufficient to support his family. Jones' father was a disabled World War I veteran who suffered from severe breathing difficulties due to injuries which he sustained in a chemical weapons attack. Jones was of Irish and Welsh descent he and his mother both claimed to also have some Cherokee ancestry, but there is no evidence of this. James Warren Jones was born on May 13, 1931, in the rural community of Crete, Indiana, to James Thurman Jones (Octo– May 29, 1951) and Lynetta Jones née Putnam (Ap– December 10, 1977). Jones then ordered a mass murder-suicide that claimed the lives of 909 commune members, 304 of them children almost all of the members died by drinking Flavor Aid laced with cyanide. While boarding a return flight with some former Temple members who wished to leave, Ryan and four others were murdered by gunmen from Jonestown. Representative Leo Ryan led a delegation to the commune in November of that year to investigate these reports. By 1978, reports surfaced of human rights abuses and accusations that people were being held in Jonestown against their will. Jones claimed that he was constructing a socialist paradise free from the oppression of the United States government. Jones's followers engaged in a communal lifestyle in which many turned over all their income and property to Jones and Peoples Temple who directed all aspects of community life.įollowing a period of negative media publicity and reports of abuse at Peoples Temple, Jones ordered the construction of the Jonestown commune in Guyana in 1974 and convinced or compelled many of his followers to live there with him. Jones became progressively more controlling of his followers in Peoples Temple, which at its peak had over 3,000 members. Beginning in the late 1960s, reports of abuse began to surface as Jones became increasingly vocal in his rejection of traditional Christianity and began promoting a form of communism he called "Apostolic Socialism" and making claims of his own divinity. Jones developed connections with prominent California politicians and was appointed as chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission in 1975. The group established its headquarters in San Francisco, where he became heavily involved in political and charitable activity throughout the 1970s. In 1965, Jones moved the Temple to California. In 1964, Jones 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. Jones distinguished himself through civil rights activism, founding the Temple as a fully integrated congregation, and promoting socialism. In 1956, Jones began to be influenced by Father Divine and the Peace Mission movement. Jones founded the organization that would become the Peoples Temple in Indianapolis in 1955. Jones's initial popularity arose from his joint campaign appearances with the movements' prominent leaders, William Branham and Joseph Mattsson-Boze, and their endorsement of his ministry. 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 and the events that occurred at Jonestown have had a defining influence on society's perception of cults.Īs a child, Jones developed an affinity for Pentecostalism and a desire to preach. In what he called "revolutionary suicide", Jones and the members of his inner circle orchestrated a mass murder-suicide in his remote jungle commune at Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978. James Warren Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978), better known as Jim Jones, was an American preacher, political activist and mass murderer who led the Peoples Temple between 19.
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