Jim Jones

=== Racial integration ===
[[File:Jim Jones shakes hands with Cecil Williams - January 1977.jpg|thumb|Jones receives a [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] Humanitarian Award from [[Cecil Williams (pastor)|Pastor Cecil Williams]], 1977.|alt=Jim Jones shakes hands with Cecil Williams with a large picture of Martin Luther King Jr. in the background.]]

In 1960, [[List of mayors of Indianapolis|Indianapolis Mayor]] Charles Boswell appointed Jones director of the local [[human rights commission]].{{sfn|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=68}} Jones ignored Boswell's advice to keep a low profile, however, and he used the position to secure new outlets for his views on local radio and television programs.{{sfn|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=68}} The mayor and other commissioners asked him to curtail his public actions, but he refused. Jones was wildly cheered at a meeting of the [[NAACP]] and the [[Urban League]] when he encouraged his audience to be more [[militant]], capping his speech with, "Let my people go!".{{sfn|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=69}}

During his time as commission director, Jones helped to racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the [[Indianapolis Police Department]], a theater, and an amusement park, and the [[Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital]].{{sfn|Wessinger|2000|p=34}} When [[swastika]]s were painted on the homes of two black families, Jones walked through the neighborhood, comforted the local black community and counseled white families not to move.{{sfn|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=71}}

Jones set up [[sting operation]]s in order to catch restaurants which refused to serve black customers{{sfn|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=71}} and wrote to [[American Nazi Party]] leaders and passed their responses to the media.{{sfn|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=72}} In 1961, Jones suffered a collapse and was hospitalized. The hospital accidentally placed Jones in its black ward, and he refused to be moved; he began to make the beds and empty the [[bedpan]]s of black patients. Political pressures which resulted from Jones's actions caused hospital officials to [[Desegregation in the United States|desegregate]] the wards.{{sfn|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=76}}

In Indiana, Jones was criticized for his integrationist views.{{sfn|Wessinger|2000|p=34}}{{sfn|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=71}} Peoples Temple became a target of white supremacists. Among several incidents, a swastika was placed on the Temple, a stick of [[dynamite]] was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones's house after a threatening phone call.{{sfn|Reiterman|Jacobs|1982|p=72}} Nevertheless, the publicity which was generated by Jones's activities attracted a larger congregation. By the end of 1961, Indianapolis was a far more racially integrated city, and "Jim Jones was almost entirely responsible."{{sfn|Guinn|2017|p=104}}