Peoples Temple

==Mass murder/suicide at Jonestown, Guyana==
{{Main|Jonestown}}
{{Location map many |Guyana
|label=Jonestown, Guyana
|label_size=95
|pos=bottom  |bg=yellow
|lat=7.66  |long=-60.187
|marksize=8
|label2=Georgetown
|label2_size=65
|lat2=6.807  |long2=-58.159
|mark2size=6
|label3=Kaituma
|label3_size=65
|pos3=right
|lat3=7.84  |long3=-60.01
|mark3size=6
|width=180 |float=right
|background=#FFFFDD
|caption=The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project ("[[Jonestown]]", [[Guyana]])
}}
In 1974, the Peoples Temple signed a lease to rent land in Guyana.<ref>Reiterman 1982. pp. 240–241.</ref> The community which was established on this piece of property was named the [[Peoples Temple Agricultural Project]], informally dubbed "Jonestown". The settlement had as few as fifty residents in early 1977.<ref name="multiref1">[http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=35655 ''Entry to Guyana''], Alternatives Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple, San Diego State University {{cite web |url=http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/JTResearch/censuses/arrival.htm |title=Jonestown |access-date=2008-09-20 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101218140456/http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/JTResearch/censuses/arrival.htm |archive-date=December 18, 2010 }}</ref>

Jones saw Jonestown as both a "socialist paradise" and a "sanctuary" from media scrutiny that had started with the Kinsolving articles.<ref>Hall 1987, p. 132</ref> Former Temple member Tim Carter said the Temple moved to Jonestown because "in '74, what we saw in the United States was creeping fascism."<ref name="carter">Tim Carter. [http://www.opb.org/radio/archives/2007/04/there_was_no_ch_1.php ''There was no choice in Jonestown that day...'']  {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070426045331/http://www.opb.org/radio/archives/2007/04/there_was_no_ch_1.php |date=April 26, 2007 }} Oregon Public Broadcasting Radio interview. April 9, 2007. {{cite web |url=http://www.opb.org/radio/archives/2007/04/there_was_no_ch_1.php |title=OPB Radio: "There was no choice in Jonestown that day..." · Oregon Public Broadcasting |access-date=2016-02-08 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101231074304/http://www.opb.org/radio/archives/2007/04/there_was_no_ch_1.php |archive-date=December 31, 2010 }}</ref> Carter explained, "It was apparent that corporations, or the multinationals, were getting much larger, their influence was growing within the government, and the United States is a racist place."<ref name="carter" /> He said the Temple concluded that Guyana was "a place in a black country where our black members could live in peace", "it was a socialist government" and it was "the only English-speaking country in South America."<ref name="carter" />

Increasing media scrutiny based on allegations by former members placed further pressure on Jones, especially after a 1977 article by [[Marshall Kilduff]] in ''[[California (magazine, defunct 1991)|New West]]'' magazine.<ref name="kilduff" /> Just before publication of the ''New West'' piece, editor Rosalie Wright telephoned Jones to read him the article.<ref>Layton 1999, pp. 111–116.</ref> Wright explained that she was only doing so before publication because of "all the support letters we received on your behalf, from the [[Governor of California]] [Jerry Brown]" and others.<ref name="layton113">Layton 1999, p. 113.</ref>

While still on the phone listening to the allegations contained in the article, Jones wrote a note to Temple members in the room with him that said, "We leave tonight. Notify Georgetown (Guyana)."<ref name="layton113" /> After Jones left for Guyana, he encouraged Temple members to follow him there. The population grew to over 900 people by late 1978.<ref name="multiref1" /><ref>Reiterman 1982. page 346.</ref> Those who moved there were promised a tropical paradise free from the supposed wickedness of the outside world.<ref>Hall 1987, p. 133</ref>

On November 17, 1978, Representative [[Leo Ryan]], who was investigating claims of abuse within the Temple, visited Jonestown.<ref>Reiterman 1982. p. 487.</ref> During his visit, a number of Temple members expressed a desire to leave with him,<ref name="raven512">Reiterman 1982. p. 512.</ref> and, on November 18, some accompanied Ryan to the local airstrip at [[Port Kaituma]].<ref>Reiterman 1982. p. 524.</ref> There they were intercepted by Temple security guards who opened fire on the group, killing Ryan, three journalists, and one of the defectors as well as injuring nine others, including Ryan's aide, [[Jackie Speier]].<ref name=Speier/><ref name="raven529">Reiterman 1982.  pp. 529–531.</ref> A few seconds of gunfire from the incident were captured on video by [[NBC]] cameraman Bob Brown, one of the journalists killed in the attack.<ref name="raven529" /> Though she was shot five times, including suffering a massive leg wound, Speier survived and won a seat in Congress in 2008, serving until she declined to run for reelection in 2022.<ref name=Speier>[https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-november-21-2018-1.4914182/jackie-speier-was-shot-5-times-during-the-jonestown-massacre-she-says-it-made-her-fearless-1.4914254 Jackie Spier was shot 5 times during the Jonestown massacre, she said it made her fearless], ''[[CBC Radio]]'', November 21, 2018. Retrieved July 28, 2022.</ref> That evening, in Jonestown, Jones ordered his congregation to drink a concoction of [[Potassium cyanide|cyanide]]-laced, grape-flavored [[Flavor Aid]].<ref>Hall 1987, p. 282</ref><ref name="tape">[http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=29084 "Jonestown Audiotape Primary Project"]. ''Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple''. San Diego State University. {{cite web |url=http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/Tapes/Tapes/DeathTape/death.html |title=Jonestown Audiotape Primary Project |access-date=2011-11-10 |archive-date=February 20, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110220005202/http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/Tapes/Tapes/DeathTape/death.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> In all, 918 people died, including 276 children.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/18/newsid_2540000/2540209.stm|title=1978: Mass Suicide Leaves 900 Dead|access-date=October 3, 2011 |publisher=BBC News}}</ref> This includes four that died at the Temple headquarters that night in the Guyanese capital of [[Georgetown, Guyana|Georgetown]].<ref>Reiterman 1982. pp. 544–545.</ref> Some members resisted committing "revolutionary suicide," and were injected with fatal doses of cyanide, as were infants, and others survived by fleeing through the jungle. Jones himself, as well as his personal aide Annie Moore, died of (likely) self-inflicted gunshot wounds. It was the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until the events of [[September 11 attacks|September 11, 2001]].<ref>Rapaport, Richard, [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/11/16/INGEM3070J1.DTL&type=printable ''Jonestown and City Hall slayings eerily linked in time and memory''], San Francisco Chronicle, November 16, 2003 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110429203154/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2003%2F11%2F16%2FINGEM3070J1.DTL&type=printable |date=April 29, 2011 }}</ref><ref>Nakao, Annie. [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/04/14/DDGRTC72N11.DTL&type=printable "The ghastly Peoples Temple deaths shocked the world."]''San Francisco Chronicle''. April 14, 2005. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110429210106/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2005%2F04%2F14%2FDDGRTC72N11.DTL&type=printable |date=April 29, 2011 }}</ref><ref name="cnn_jones">Knapp, Don. [http://www.cnn.com/US/9811/18/jonestown.anniv.01/ "Jonestown massacre + 20: Questions linger."] CNN.com. November 18, 1998. Retrieved April 9, 2007. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070320074839/http://www.cnn.com/US/9811/18/jonestown.anniv.01/ |date=March 20, 2007}}</ref>

<gallery widths="200" heights="175" mode="packed">
File:PTinGuyana Cen image001.gif|alt=|Jonestown arrivals and population
File:Jonestown entrance.jpg|alt=|The entrance to Jonestown
File:Jonestown Houses.jpg|alt=|Housing in Jonestown
File:Leo Ryan.jpg|alt=|Congressman [[Leo Ryan]]
File:Jonestown, Guyana bodies.jpg|alt=|Bodies after the "revolutionary suicide" in Jonestown
</gallery>

===Aftermath===
{{See|Drinking the Kool-Aid}}

[[File:Former First Church of Christ Scientist, Los Angeles.JPG|thumb|upright=1|Temple building at 1366 S. Alvarado St., Los Angeles]]

The Temple's San Francisco headquarters was besieged by the national media and the relatives of the Jonestown victims.<ref name="raven573">Reiterman 1982. p. 573</ref> The mass killing became one of the best-known events in U.S. history as measured by the [[Gallup (company)#Gallup Poll|Gallup poll]] and appeared on the cover of several newspapers and magazines, including ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'', for months afterward.<ref name="hall289">Hall, John R. ''Gone from the Promised Land: Jonestown in American Cultural History''. 1989. {{ISBN|978-0887388019}}. p. 289.</ref>

In addition, according to various press reports,<ref>Spencer, Duncan, "Cult's Ukiah Community in Fear of Vengeful Death Squads", Washington Star-News, November 23, 1978</ref><ref>"Police Seek Out Cult 'Hit Squads'", San Francisco Examiner, November 22, 1978</ref> after the Jonestown suicides, surviving Temple members in the U.S. announced their fears of being targeted by a "hit squad" which would be composed of Jonestown survivors. Similarly, in 1979, the [[Associated Press]] reported a U.S. Congressional aide's claim that there were "120 white, brainwashed assassins out from Jonestown awaiting the trigger word to pick up their hit."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/mass/jonestown/connections_5.html |title=Jonestown Massacre: A 'Reason' to Die |access-date=2007-05-22 |last=Steel |first=Fiona |publisher=CrimeLibrary.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110515191531/http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/mass/jonestown/connections_5.html |archive-date=May 15, 2011 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Temple insider Michael Prokes, who had been ordered to deliver a suitcase which contained Temple funds which were supposed to be transferred to the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]],<ref name="reit580">Reiterman 1982. pp. 561–580.</ref><ref name="timofeyev">[http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/letter_toFeodorTimofeyev.pdf "Letter to Feodor Timofeyev."] ''Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple''. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University. {{cite web |url=http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/PrimarySources/financialLetters/letter_toFeodorTimofeyev.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2012-11-12 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110501035601/http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/PrimarySources/financialLetters/letter_toFeodorTimofeyev.pdf |archive-date=May 1, 2011 }}</ref> killed himself in March 1979, four months after the Jonestown incident. In the days leading up to his death, Prokes sent notes to several people, together with a thirty-page statement he had written about the Temple. Caen reprinted one copy in his ''Chronicle'' column.<ref name="prokes" /> Prokes then arranged for a press conference in a [[Modesto, California]] motel room, during which he read a statement to the eight reporters who attended. He then excused himself, entered a restroom, and fatally shot himself in the head.<ref name="prokes">[http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=13683 "Statement of Michael Prokes."] ''Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple''. San Diego State University: Jonestown Project. Retrieved September 22, 2007. {{cite web |url=http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/PrimarySources/Prokes_statement.htm |title=Jonestown |access-date=2012-11-12 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101207165457/http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/PrimarySources/Prokes_statement.htm |archive-date=December 7, 2010 }}</ref>

Before the tragedy, Temple member Paula Adams engaged in a romantic relationship with Guyana's Ambassador to the United States, Laurence "Bonny" Mann.<ref>Reiterman 1982. pp. 274–2745, 418.</ref> Adams later married Mann.<ref name="WP">Weingarten, Gene. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/18/AR2006011801434_5.html "The Peekaboo Paradox."] ''The Washington Post''. January 22, 2006. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110501131330/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/18/AR2006011801434_5.html |date=May 1, 2011 }}</ref> On October 24, 1983, Mann fatally shot both Adams and the couple's child, and then fatally shot himself.<ref name="WP" /> Defecting member Harold Cordell lost twenty family members on the evening of the poisonings.<ref>[https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/jonestown/peopleevents/p_people.html ''The Congregation of Peoples Temple''.] PBS.org. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090225194625/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/jonestown/peopleevents/p_people.html |date=February 25, 2009 }}</ref> The Bogues family, which had also defected, lost their daughter Marilee (age 18), while defector Vernon Gosney lost his son Mark (age 5).<ref>[http://www.culteducation.com/reference/jonestown/jonestown58.html ''Who Died at Jonestown?''] Ross Institute. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101219233458/http://rickross.com/reference/jonestown/jonestown58.html |date=December 19, 2010}}</ref>

The mass suicide of the Peoples Temple has helped embed the idea that all [[new religious movement]]s are destructive in the public's mind. [[Bryan R. Wilson]] argues against that point of view by pointing out that only four other such events have occurred within similar religious groups: the [[Branch Davidians]], the [[Order of the Solar Temple|Solar Temple]], [[Aum Shinrikyo]] and [[Heaven's Gate (religious group)|Heaven's Gate]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.scribd.com/document/115621228/Why-the-Bruderhof-is-not-a-cult-by-Bryan-Wilson|title=Why the Bruderhof is not a cult – by Bryan Wilson {{!}} Cult And Sect {{!}} Religion And Belief|website=Scribd|language=en|access-date=2017-07-07}}</ref>

===Bankruptcy and dissolution===
At the end of 1978, the Temple declared bankruptcy, and its assets went into [[receivership]].<ref name="happened">[http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=35370 "What happened to Peoples Temple after 18 November 1978?"] ''Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple''. San Diego State University: Jonestown Project. 2007-03-08. {{cite web |url=http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/FAQ/q_ptafternov18.htm |title=Frequently Asked Questions |access-date=2008-06-11 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110205062516/http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/FAQ/q_ptafternov18.htm |archive-date=February 5, 2011 }}</ref> In light of lawsuits, on December 4, 1978, [[Charles Garry]], the corporation's attorney, petitioned to dissolve the Temple. The petition was granted in San Francisco Superior Court in January 1979.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=13665|title=The Court's Wrapping-Up of Peoples Temple Affairs – Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple|website=jonestown.sdsu.edu|access-date=June 16, 2017}}</ref> A few Temple members remained in Guyana through May 1979 in order to wrap up the movement's affairs, then they returned to the United States. <ref name="happened" />

The Temple's buildings in Los Angeles, Indianapolis, and Redwood Valley are all intact,<ref name="happened" /> as is the Temple's former Georgetown headquarters. Some former Temple buildings, such as the Los Angeles facility, are presently used by church congregations.<ref>[http://centralspanish22.adventistchurchconnect.org/article.php?id=15 ''Central Spanish Seventh-day Adventist Church'']. AdventistChurchConnect.org.  {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110724224419/http://centralspanish22.adventistchurchconnect.org/article.php?id=15 |date=July 24, 2011 }}</ref> The Temple's former San Francisco headquarters, located at 1859 Geary Boulevard, was destroyed in the [[1989 Loma Prieta earthquake]]; the site is now occupied by a [[United States Post Office|Post Office]] branch.