197 Facts About Jim Jones

James Warren Jones better known as Jim Jones was an American preacher and political activist who led the Peoples Temple between 1955 and 1978.

Jim Jones 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.

Jim Jones founded the organization that would become the Peoples Temple in Indianapolis in 1955.

In 1956, Jim Jones began to be influenced by Father Divine and the Peace Mission movement.

Jim Jones distinguished himself through civil rights activism, founding the Temple as a fully integrated congregation, and promoting socialism.

In 1964, Jim 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.

Jim Jones developed connections with prominent California politicians and was appointed as chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission in 1975.

Jim Jones became progressively more controlling of his followers in Peoples Temple, which at its peak had over 3,000 members.

Jim Jones's followers engaged in a communal lifestyle in which many turned over all their income and property to Jim Jones and Peoples Temple who directed all aspects of community life.

Jim Jones claimed that he was constructing a socialist paradise free from the oppression of the United States government.

Jim 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.

Jim Jones was of Irish and Welsh descent; he and his mother both claimed to have some Cherokee ancestry, but there is no evidence of this.

Jim Jones 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.

In 1934, in the midst of the Great Depression, the Jim Jones family was evicted from their home for failure to make mortgage payments.

The new home, where Jim Jones grew up, lacked plumbing and electricity.

When Jim Jones started to attend school, his extended family threatened to cut off their financial assistance unless his mother got a job, forcing her to work outside her home.

Meanwhile, Jim Jones' father was hospitalized multiple times due to his illness.

Jim Jones was cared for by the female residents of Lynn, and they frequently invited him into their houses to give him food, clothing, and other gifts.

Jim Jones gave Jones a Bible and encouraged him to study it, teaching him to follow the holiness code of the Nazarene Church.

Jim Jones developed a desire to become a preacher as a child and he began to practice preaching in private.

Jim Jones's mother claimed that she was disturbed when she caught him imitating the pastor of the local Apostolic Pentecostal Church and she unsuccessfully attempted to prevent him from attending the church's services.

Jim Jones regularly visited a casket manufacturer in Lynn and held mock funerals for roadkill that he collected.

Jim Jones claimed to have unique abilities, such as the capacity to fly.

Jim Jones once leaped off a building's roof to demonstrate his abilities to others, but he fell and broke his arm.

Jim Jones nonetheless persisted in saying he had exceptional abilities despite the fall.

Jim Jones allegedly committed countless sacrilegious pranks in the churches he attended as a boy, according to claims he made in adult life.

Jim Jones claimed that he had stolen the Pentecostal minister's Bible and had covered Acts 2:38 with cow manure.

Jim Jones asserted that he substituted a cup of his own urine for the holy water once at a Catholic church.

One Jim Jones biographer suggested that he developed his unusual interests because he found it difficult to make friends.

Jim Jones frequently stole candy from merchants in the town; his mother was required to pay for his thefts.

Jim Jones developed an intense interest in religion and social doctrines.

Jim Jones became a voracious reader who studied Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx and Mahatma Gandhi.

Jim Jones would tell his wife that Mao Zedong was his hero.

Jim Jones spent hours in the community library, and he brought books home so he could read them in the evenings.

Jim Jones was fascinated by their pomp, their cohesion, and Hitler's total power.

Jim Jones acted as a dictator over the other kids, ordering them to goosestep together and beating those who disobeyed.

Tim Reiterman, a journalist and biographer of Jim Jones, wrote that Jim Jones' attraction to religion was strongly influenced by his desire for a family.

Jim Jones went to see the Kennedy family in 1942 when they spent the summer in Richmond, Indiana.

Jim Jones' mother was urged to control his behaviour by many individuals in Lynn, but she refused.

Jim Jones had established himself as an outcast among his friends by the time he started high school and was growingly despised by the locals.

In high school, Jim Jones continued to stand out from his peers.

Jim Jones was a good student who enjoyed debating with his teachers.

Jim Jones had the habit of refusing to respond to anyone who spoke to him first and only engaged in conversations when he started them.

In contrast to his peers, Jim Jones was known to dress in his Sunday church clothes every day of the week.

Jim Jones frequently confronted them for drinking beer, smoking, and dancing.

Jim Jones did not enjoy participating in sports because he detested losing, so he coached teams for younger children instead.

Jim Jones was disturbed by the treatment of the African Americans who were in attendance at a baseball game he attended in Richmond, Indiana.

Jim Jones' father belonged to the Indiana branch of the Ku Klux Klan, which enjoyed considerable support in Indiana during the Great Depression.

Jim Jones described how he and his father had a disagreement about race and added that they had not spoken for "many, many years" as a result of his father forbidding one of Jim Jones' black friends from entering his home.

Jim Jones moved to Richmond, Indiana with his mother, where he graduated from Richmond High School in December 1948 early and with honors.

Jim Jones was well-regarded by the senior management, but staff members later recalled that Jim Jones exhibited disturbing behavior towards some patients and co-workers.

Jim Jones began dating a nurse-in-training named Marceline Mae Baldwin while he was working at Reid Hospital.

Jim Jones moved to Bloomington, Indiana in November 1948, where he attended Indiana University Bloomington with the intention of becoming a doctor, but changed his mind shortly thereafter.

Marceline was Methodist, and she and Jim Jones immediately fell into arguments about church.

Jim Jones's strong opposition to the Methodist church's racial segregationist practices was an early strain on their marriage and throughout the duration of their relationship Jim Jones frequently emotionally and psychologically abused Marceline.

Jim Jones insisted on attending Bloomington's Full Gospel Tabernacle, but eventually compromised and began attending a local Methodist church on most Sunday mornings.

Jim Jones took night classes at Butler University to continue his education, finally earning a degree in secondary education in 1961.

In 1951, the 20-year-old Jim Jones began attending gatherings of the Communist Party USA in Indianapolis.

In one event, Jim Jones's mother was harassed by FBI agents in front of her co-workers because she had attended a communist meeting with her son.

Jim Jones continued to visit and speak at Pentecostal churches while serving as Methodist student pastor.

In early 1954 Jim Jones was dismissed from his position in the Methodist Church, ostensibly for stealing church funds, though he later claimed he left the church because its leaders forbade him from integrating blacks into his congregation.

Around this time in 1953, Jim Jones visited a Pentecostal Latter Rain convention in Columbus, Indiana, where a woman prophesied that Jim Jones was a prophet with a great ministry.

Jim Jones was surprised by the endorsement, but gladly accepted the call to preach and rose to the podium to deliver a message to the crowd.

In 1953, Jim Jones began attending and preaching at the Laurel Street Tabernacle in Indianapolis, a Pentecostal Assemblies of God church.

Jim Jones held healing revivals there until 1955 and began to travel and speak at other churches in the Latter Rain movement.

Jim Jones was a guest speaker at a 1953 convention in Detroit.

Jim Jones saw a need for publicity, and began seeking a way to popularize his ministry and recruit members.

Jim Jones began to closely associate with the Independent Assemblies of God, an international group of churches which embraced the Latter Rain movement.

In June 1955, Jim Jones held his first joint meetings with William Branham, a healing evangelist and Pentecostal leader in the global Healing Revival.

In 1956, Jim Jones was ordained as an IAoG minister by Joseph Mattsson-Boze, a leader in the Latter Rain movement and the IAoG.

Jim Jones was intrigued by Branham's methods and began performing the same feats.

Many attendees believed Jim Jones's performance indicated that he possessed a supernatural gift, and coupled with Branham's endorsement, it led to rapid growth of Peoples Temple.

Jim Jones was particularly effective at recruitment among the African American attendees at the conventions.

Jim Jones participated in a series of multi-state revival campaigns with Branham in the second half of the 1950s.

Jim Jones claimed to be a follower and promoter of Branham's "Message" during the period.

Jim Jones adopted one of the Latter Rain's key doctrines which he continued to promote for the rest of his life: the Manifested Sons of God.

Jim Jones was fascinated with the idea, and adapted it to promote his own utopian ideas and eventually the idea that he was himself a manifestation of God.

Jim Jones learned some of his most successful recruitment tactics from Branham.

Jim Jones eventually separated from the Latter Rain movement following a bitter disagreement with Branham in which Jim Jones prophesied Branham's death.

In 1956, Jim Jones made his first visit to investigate Father Divine's Peace Mission in Philadelphia.

Jim Jones was careful to explain that his visit to the Peace Mission was so he could "give an authentic, unbiased, and objective statement" about its activities to his fellow Pentecostal ministers.

Jim Jones made a second visit to Father Divine in 1958 to learn more about his practices.

Jim Jones bragged to his congregation that he would like to be the successor of Father Divine and made many comparisons between their two ministries.

Jim Jones began progressively implementing the disciplinary practices he learned from Father Divine which increasingly took control over the lives of members of Peoples Temple.

Jim Jones was ordained as a Disciples minister at a time when the requirements for ordination varied greatly and Disciples membership was open to any church.

Jim Jones ignored Boswell's advice to keep a low profile and he used the position to secure new outlets for his views on local radio and television programs.

When swastikas were painted on the homes of two black families, Jim Jones walked through the neighborhood, comforted the local black community and counseled white families not to move.

Jim Jones set up sting operations in order to catch restaurants which refused to serve black customers and wrote to American Nazi Party leaders and passed their responses to the media.

Political pressures which resulted from Jim Jones's actions caused hospital officials to desegregate the wards.

Nevertheless, the publicity which was generated by Jim Jones's activities attracted a larger congregation.

Stephanie Jim Jones died aged 5 in a car accident in May 1959.

In 1961, Jim Jones warned his congregation that he had received visions of a nuclear attack that would devastate Indianapolis.

Jim Jones's wife confided to her friends that he was becoming increasingly paranoid and fearful.

Jim Jones began to look for a way to escape the destruction he believed was imminent.

Jim Jones decided to travel to South America to scout for a site to relocate Peoples Temple.

Jim Jones made a stop in Georgetown, Guyana on his way to Brazil.

Jim Jones held revival meetings in Guyana, which was a British colony.

Jim Jones studied the local economy and receptiveness of racial minorities to his message, but found language to be a barrier.

Unable to find a location he deemed suitable for Peoples Temple, Jim Jones became plagued by guilt for abandoning the civil rights struggle in Indiana.

Jim Jones demanded the Peoples Temple send all its revenue to him in South America to support his efforts and the church went into debt to support his mission.

In late 1963, Archie Ijames sent word that the Temple was about to collapse, and threatened to resign if Jim Jones did not soon return.

Jim Jones arrived in December 1963 to find Peoples Temple bitterly divided.

Financial issues and low attendance forced Jim Jones to sell the Peoples Temple church building and relocate to a smaller building nearby.

In California, Jim Jones took a job as a history and government teacher at an adult education school in Ukiah.

Jim Jones used his position to recruit for Peoples Temple, teaching his students the benefits of Marxism and lecturing on religion.

Jim Jones planted loyal members of Peoples Temple in the classes to help him with recruitment.

Jim Jones recruited 50 new members to Peoples Temple in the first few months.

In 1967, Jim Jones's followers coaxed another 75 members of the Indianapolis congregation to move to California.

Jim Jones began to use the denominational connection to promote Peoples Temple as part of the 1.5 million member denomination.

Jim Jones played up famous members of the Disciples, including Lyndon Johnson and J Edgar Hoover, and misrepresented the nature of his position in the denomination.

Jim Jones developed a theology influenced by the teachings of William Branham and the Latter Rain movement, Father Divine's "divine economic socialism" teachings, and infused with Jim Jones's personal communist worldview.

Jim Jones concealed the communist aspects of his teachings until the late 1960s, following the relocation of Peoples Temple to California, where he began to gradually introduce his full beliefs to his followers.

Jim Jones taught that "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment", which he defined as socialism.

Jim Jones asserted that traditional Christianity had an incorrect view of God.

Jim Jones referred to traditional Christianity's view of God as a "Sky God" who was "no God at all".

Jim Jones claimed he was sent to share the true meaning of the gospel which had been hidden by corrupt leaders.

Jim Jones rejected even the few required tenets of the Disciples of Christ denomination.

Jim Jones created his own baptismal formula, baptizing his converts "in the holy name of Socialism".

Jim Jones frequently warned his followers of an imminent apocalyptic nuclear race war.

Jim Jones claimed that Nazis and white supremacists would put people of color into concentration camps.

Jim Jones taught his followers the only way to escape the supposed imminent catastrophe was to accept his teachings, and that after the apocalypse was over, they would emerge to establish a perfect communist society.

Publicly, Jim Jones took care to always couch his socialist views in religious terms, such as "apostolic social justice".

Jim Jones feared losing the church's tax-exempt status and having to report his financial dealings to the Internal Revenue Service.

Historians are divided over whether Jim Jones actually believed his own teachings, or was just using them to manipulate people.

Marceline admitted in a 1977 New York Times interview that Jim Jones was trying to promote Marxism in the US by mobilizing people through religion.

Jim Jones said Jones called the Bible a "paper idol" that he wanted to destroy.

Jim Jones taught his followers that the ends justify the means and authorized them to achieve his vision by any means necessary.

Jim Jones began using illicit drugs after moving to California, which further heightened his paranoia.

Jim Jones increasingly used fear to control and manipulate his followers.

Jim Jones frequently warned his followers that there was an enemy seeking to destroy them.

Jim Jones frequently prophesied that fires, car accidents, and death or injury would come upon anyone unfaithful to him and his teachings.

Jim Jones constantly pressed his followers to be aggressive in promoting and fulfilling his beliefs.

Jim Jones established a Planning Commission made up of his lieutenants to direct the Peoples Temples' communal lifestyle.

Jim Jones directed groups of his followers to work on various projects for additional income and set up an agricultural operation in Redwood Valley to grow food.

Jim Jones eventually moved the Temple's headquarters to San Francisco, which was a major center for radical protest movements.

Jim Jones held a faith healing revival meeting wherein he impressed the crowd by claiming to heal a man of cancer; his followers later admitted to helping him stage the "healing".

The event was successful, and Jim Jones recruited about 200 new members for Peoples Temple.

Jim Jones confronted Divine's wife and claimed to be the reincarnation of Father Divine.

At a banquet that evening, Jim Jones's followers seized control of the event and Jim Jones addressed Divine's followers, again claiming that he was Father Divine's successor.

Divine's wife rose up and accused Jim Jones of being the devil in disguise and demanded he leave.

Jim Jones managed to recruit only twelve followers through the event.

Jim Jones became active in San Francisco politics and was able to gain contact with prominent local and state politicians.

Jim Jones hosted local political figures at his San Francisco apartment for discussions.

In September 1976, Assemblyman Willie Brown served as master of ceremonies at a large testimonial dinner for Jim Jones attended by Governor Jerry Brown and Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally.

At that dinner, Willie Brown touted Jim Jones as "what you should see every day when you look in the mirror" and said he was a combination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Jim Jones forged alliances with key columnists and others at the San Francisco Chronicle and other press outlets that gave Jim Jones favorable press during his early years in California.

Jim Jones began to receive negative press beginning in October 1971 when reporters covered one of Jim Jones's divine healing services during a visit to his old church in Indianapolis.

Jim Jones had been performing faith healing "miracles" since his joint campaigns with William Branham.

In other instances, Jim Jones had someone from his inner circle enter the prayer line for healing of cancer.

Jim Jones pretended to have "special revelations" about individuals which revealed supposed hidden details of their lives.

Jim Jones had coworkers who called at the potential recruits' homes, and asked detailed questions in the cover of doing an unrelated examination.

Jim Jones was fearful that his methods would be exposed by the investigation.

In 1973, Ross Case, a former follower of Jim Jones, began working with a group in Ukiah to investigate Peoples Temple.

Reports of Case's activity reached Jim Jones, who became increasingly paranoid that the authorities were after him.

Jim Jones became convinced he was losing control and needed to relocate Peoples Temple to escape the mounting threats and allegations.

On December 13,1973, Jim Jones was arrested and charged with lewd conduct for allegedly masturbating in the presence of a male undercover LAPD vice officer in a movie theater restroom near Los Angeles's MacArthur Park.

On December 20,1973, the charge against Jim Jones was dismissed, though the details of the dismissal are not clear.

The group decided on Guyana as a favorable location, citing its recent revolution, socialist government, and the favorable reaction Jim Jones received when he traveled there in 1963.

Jim Jones described Lenin and Stalin as his heroes, and saw the Soviet Union as an ideal society.

Jim Jones was put in charge of the project and oversaw the installation of a power generation station, clearance of fields for farming, and the construction of dormitories to prepare for the first settlers.

Jim Jones was largely unsuccessful and more stories of abuse in Peoples Temple were leaked to the public.

Jim Jones promoted the commune as a means to create both a "socialist paradise" and a "sanctuary" from the media scrutiny in San Francisco.

Jim Jones purported to establish it as a model communist community, adding that the Temple comprised "the purest communists there are".

Bureaucratic requirements after Jim Jones' arrival sapped labor resources for other needs.

Jim Jones began moving the Temple's financial assets overseas and started to sell off property in the United States.

Jim Jones compared this schedule to the North Korean system of eight hours of daily work followed by eight hours of study.

Recordings of commune meetings show how livid and frustrated Jim Jones would get when anyone did not understand or find interesting the message Jim Jones was placing upon them.

Jim Jones ordered the child to be taken to Guyana in February 1977 to avoid a custody dispute with Grace.

In January 1977, Jim Jones travelled to Cuba with Carlton Goodlett in order to establish an import-export trading relation with Cuba for a San Francisco Bay Area company that he had founded.

Jim Jones commented that Newton only "missed his luxurious apartment and his favorite bars in Oakland".

Jim Jones's efforts aroused the curiosity of California Congressman Leo Ryan, who wrote a letter on Stoen's behalf to Guyanese Prime Minister Forbes Burnham.

However, Layton noted that Jim Jones did not rely on the same diet as his followers.

Jim Jones permitted a few chosen members of his inner circle to eat from his personal supplies, and they appeared to be in much better health than the other residents.

Jim Jones was facing increasing scrutiny in the summer of 1978 when he hired JFK assassination conspiracy theorists Mark Lane and Donald Freed to help make the case of a "grand conspiracy" against the Temple by US intelligence agencies.

Jim Jones told Lane that he wanted to "pull an Eldridge Cleaver", referring to a fugitive member of the Black Panthers who was able to return to the US after rebuilding his reputation.

Jim Jones attempted to negotiate for his commune to resettle in the Soviet Union.

Jim Jones would call "Alert, Alert, Alert" over the community loudspeaker to call the community together in the central pavilion.

The community members would remain at the pavilion throughout the drill, in which Jim Jones told them that their community had been surrounded by agents who were about to destroy them.

Jim Jones led them in prayers, chanting, and singing to ward off the impending attack.

In one 1978 White Night drill, Jim Jones told his followers he was going to distribute poison for everyone to drink in an act of suicide.

Jim Jones warned us that the time was not far off when it would become necessary for us to die by our own hands.

Jim Jones was seen staggering and urinating in public, but this was due to prostatitis for a short time towards the end of Jonestown in late October 1978, not the entirety of Jonestown.

Jim Jones found it difficult to walk without assistance around this time, but it cleared up by Leo Ryan's visit.

Jim Jones was said to be abusing valium, quaaludes, stimulants, and barbiturates.

Jim Jones's delegation included relatives of Temple members, an NBC camera crew, and reporters for several newspapers.

Ryan and his delegation managed to take along 15 Temple members who expressed a desire to leave, and Jim Jones made no attempt to prevent their departure at that time.

Later the same day, November 18,1978, Jim Jones received word that his security guards failed to kill all of Ryan's party.

Jim Jones informed the community that Ryan was dead and it was only a matter of time before military commandos descended on their commune and killed them all.

Jim Jones told Temple members that the Soviet Union would not give them passage after the airstrip shooting.

The Temple had received monthly half-pound shipments of cyanide since 1976 after Jim Jones obtained a jeweler's license to buy the chemical, purportedly to clean gold.

Furthermore, in a 2007 interview with forensic psychiatrist Dr Michael H Stone for the program Most Evil, Carter stated his belief that Jones had his guards pose the dead bodies of the Jonestown residents to make it appear that more people had willingly committed suicide.

Jim Jones was found dead on the stage of the central pavilion; he was resting on a pillow near his deck chair with a gunshot wound to his head.

Jim Jones's body was cremated and his remains were scattered in the Atlantic Ocean.

Jim Jones's body was found just outside of Jones's house.

Graham was joined by other prominent Christian leaders in alleging that Jim Jones was demonically possessed.

At first, he denied that Jim Jones had any connection to the deaths and alleged the events were a plot by enemies of the Church, but later acknowledged the truth.

The supporters of Peoples Temple, especially politicians, had a difficult time explaining their connections to Jim Jones following the deaths.