At first, this looked like a mass suicide, but then as this organization, officially titled "The People's Temple" was examined and determined to be a cult, the act was changed from suicide to "massacre."
The People's Temple had been founded in 1955 in Indianapolis by a self-styled minister who had no theological training, James Warren Jones. Jones' message and philosophy was a blend of socialism and religion whose theme of communalism appealed to a number of people. Jones moved his organization several times, ending up in San Francisco in 1971. There, his People's Temple grew to some 20,000 members.
Jones and his radical "Temple" became the subject of several investigations in San Francisco: voter fraud for having busloads of followers driven from polling place to polling place to vote multiple times; fraudulently using donations for his own personal use; and a manslaughter investigation for sending a box of candy with a bomb in it to a political candidate that was critical of Jones.
In 1977, Jones moved again, this time to an isolated area in Guyana, so that he and the 1,000 followers who went with him, could live in peace -- and so that he could avoid prosecution.
In 1978, a California Congressman, Leo Ryan, made a fact-finding visit to Jonestown. As he was leaving with several "rescued" followers, Ryan and four of his party were shot and killed by the
Temple's security guards.The next day, Jones orchestrated the largest mass suicide in recent history.
Of the victims, over 400 unclaimed bodies were buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, California where each year at 11:00am on November 18, people gather for a memorial service.
Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in the state of being alive. If life is to be sustained hope must remain, even where confidence is wounded, trust impaired.
~ Erik H. Erikson, psychologist
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