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(Note: Transcript prepared by Seriina Covarrubias. The editors gratefully acknowledge her invaluable assistance.)
Part 1
Organ music fades
Jones: (unintelligible words) to be able to worship together in this great fulfillment. (Pause) I’m certain that some of you have questions about our new procedures, but believe me, we know what we are doing.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: It’s tragedy that people cannot respect love and humility and kindness. They interpret that sometimes as weakness and (tape fades) tragedy. So today we did uh, our little cadences down the street. We marched through the Fillmore area, but in a different way, smiling and speaking to the people, giving assistance to the people as we did yesterday. Someone was out– down and out giving them assistance. And as we marched down, there were people asking all kinds of questions. Who are they? Uh– One brother said, can I join? So you see it– it had its uh– it had its advertisement. It’s quite different from some others who march who are cold and callused. We speak to everyone we see, and we get out of the way of people, but yet we keep formation. And we’re doing that, because some have said that we were going to be chased out of this block and uh, we’re– I’m– I think that if you’d watch people back off the street, I’d think already in 24 hours, people have decided they don’t want to chase us out of the street.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: In– In fact of the matter, I couldn’t even find some people in the street (Laughs). So it’s uh– it’s wonderful that– in case anyone is threatening to take us out, I suspect that they are reconsidering.
Crowd: Murmurs
Jones: And so we are going to have more of this kind of thing, they– they got a supply of these things there, this type of a suit or whatever it is. And if others would like to get a spirit of camaraderie and have it, uh, let us know. If you can afford it, uh, we would appreciate your help. But I was thinking while Sister [Christine] Bates was testifying, some of you missed the point perhaps, she said, I’m a woman. I’m liberated, I’m free, able to stand on my own feet. Of all the healings that are done in this Temple, that’s the most magnificent when someone can stand up and say, I am indeed a woman and I don’t look down to anyone anymore. I look you in the eyes, or I’m a brother now and no one is above me, and I don’t feel I’d have any need to have anyone below me–
Voice in crowd: Yeah.
Jones: –but I can look you straight in the eye. That’s the greatest healing of all.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: Now, we could– very easy for us to ignore the world outside and say appearances mean nothing, but the fact is the other day when we were walking in the street, some others were ma– were making snide remarks about the way we were dressed, that we were kind of sloppy. And so today there weren’t any remarks. People were just looking off with awe–
Voice in crowd: All right.
Jones: –and uh, the remarks were, they’ve never seen a group like this before and that was the– the exact reaction you got every place that you went.
Voice in crowd: Wonderful.
Jones: So we deal in a world of uh, realties. Some people won’t give you freedom, unless you look the part, and the danger is when you get extravagant clothes, is then you have competition again. But I think that we’re going to decide – and we’re going to work towards it – if you can’t afford it, the Temple will underwrite it, and if you are lying to us, then you’ll probably find yourself dead, like four who have died this week.
Voice in crowd: Yeah.
Jones: We’re going to try to determine some kind of a policy of– of dress so that everyone can walk down the street at least one time. I didn’t mean you always have to dress like us, but that so each person will have a nice kind of suit, and I want to say the sisters ought to be ready uh, similarly to get something that would be appropriate. And I think we ought to integrate brothers and sisters to show that we are not a chauvinist society, and we will go through this neighborhood now and then, stopping to pick up trash even, stopping our formation to show that we are concerned about this area.
Voice in crowd: Yeah.
Jones: Today we didn’t take uh, the time to do this because we were pressed but to pick up glass – there were glass on the street – and were to stop to do that sort of thing and communicate also that Peoples Temple is here, it offers a certain protection, and it also does not intend to be pushed around.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: Little remarks– little remarks that we’re touching, there’s black and white, you know, all shades, and people were impressed by that togetherness. It seemed to put new hope. You could just see the light of hope spring in people’s eyes again, and uh, we want to do more of that. Perhaps at the end of the day, people– some of the sisters could– that do have uh, the similar uniform, and others who don’t have but are– feel that you’re uh, up to par in appearance, we could take another walk, and this time we will pick up some things at the end of the day. We’ll take about a half an hour and we’ll walk through the area, maybe carry a receptacle with us to put dangerous glass in it or something of that sort. Stop and move, stop and move, and communicate our ideals because we don’t want to be out there just to flex muscle, but there’s a fact that people who never felt like we feel, who never cared about children and older people and animals, they know nothing but the fact of a strong formation.
Voices in crowd: That’s right.
Jones: That’s all they know, that’s all they can appreciate.
Voice in crowd: So true.
Jones: That’s the first way to get their attention.
Voice in crowd: So true.
Jones: And we did indeed get their attention. It’s been impossible to walk in certain areas. Our people have had to walk out around the curb, but not today–
Man in crowd: Laughs
Jones: –and not last tonight.
Man in crowd: Laughs
Jones: And we will continue walking, until these streets are open and clear.
Crowd: Sustained cheers and applause
Jones: We’re not happy that we have to resort to those measures, neither are we happy that we have to have these spot kind of security checks, but we uh, have had little threats– and I’m not concerned about it, because I’ve come– I’ve proven that I can come through shots–
Voice in crowd: Right.
Jones: –and knifing– and knifings and uh– but I don’t think we ought to have to sit here wondering whether or not there’s anybody with a little gun or a little– a knife that they can be mad at the wrong time and shove it into somebody. I think that the best way– and we’re going to finally avoid some of this, is we’re going to have us a m– a metal detector. It’ll be at the door – that’s what we’re aiming for – and when you go through the detector, that’ll take care of the problem, so you won’t feel that. But I think we ought to have a right to one time in this crazy mad world that we ought to have the opportunity to sit in the place where we know that there’s somebody not there with a knife or a gun or something else to harm, and where there’s no need to have such equipment as that.
Crowd: Tentative cheers and applause
Jones: You disagree with that?
Voices in crowd: No, no.
Jones: Anybody disagree with it, you can talk with us about it. We’re– we’re– we’re open to it but we– we would like to have an environment free of that sort of thing, because it’s not uncommon to find in the most uh, prestigious gatherings where senators are or great leaders that someone will pull out a knife or a gun. Well, we are going to see here that that is changed, for a few weeks ago– few months ago in the front row of the auditorium that we used to use up until we bought this church a couple or three months ago, a woman sit down in the front row, and she was with Bible in hand and she said that uh– we were wrong and she was right. She accused us of not being filled with the Holy Ghost, and we were the antichrist and we let her preach at us for about thirty minutes or fifteen minutes rather, and she went on and on. And I said now that you’ve had your say, you have to be still. She pulled an ice pick on Brother Brown, she pulled an ice pick on him. This good holy– holiness woman pulled out her ice pick right out of her Bible and went at him.
Crowd: Murmurs
Jones: So uh– we’re not going to have it and uh, if you– if you come in here, uh, we understand you’re walking on the streets. We’re going to have to walk through these streets to show something.
Voice in crowd: Right.
Jones: Now last uh– some days ago or some time ago, this– this park– it is not even safe yet until we walk, but we’re gonna take to walking at night in formations. Women have not been able to walk through that park without being raped.
Voices in crowd: Right.
Jones: Now we’re gonna do something about this area, and if we catch somebody would-be raper uh, we will rape them.
Crowd: Sustained cheers and applause
Jones: (Laughs) (Voice rises) We’re gonna stop this business. If nobody else in the town cares about this, I’m sure that rapists couldn’t walk through the parks in other areas. And if somebody else is not going to stop these rapists, we will, by God.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: Our women are as important as the blonde-headed women on Nob Hill.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: We’re gonna clean up this section of the town, so people can walk from their cars without being mugged.
Crowd: Murmured response
Jones: At least we’re going to be around and uh, that gonna create some problem because mugsters not gonna like us. But I think some others will like us, if we have to make this place a little bit better place to live in.
Voices in crowd: That’s right.
Jones: So let’s make sure that we are our brother’s keeper, this is religion, we are our sister’s keeper as we walk these streets, and don’t be indifferent. Last– the very last night couple blocks down the way we– we rescued a woman who was about to be raped by three men.
Crowd: Murmurs
Jones: Three men and we rescued her so this just last evening. And ah we’re around; and we’re gonna stay around, and we want people to know we’re around.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: It won’t mean much to you, I guess, until you are running breathlessly as the woman was, trying to protect her own– her life, trying to protect her own uh, virgin– uh, virtue of the moment. She didn’t want to be violated and three big men– big old sissified weird queer men. There’s only weird men, uh, three of ‘em, chase after a woman– no, no normal man does that, some little sissy does that.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: Sissy. You can announce it everywhere that all the rapists are sissies. If you were to rape, you were a sissy when you did it. (unintelligible word)
Crowd: Laughs
Jones: You see, you rape because you think you haven’t got enough, that when you ask that you’d be accepted.
Woman: Right on.
Man: That’s right.
Jones: So you rape, because you’re very insecure. You don’t think you’ve got enough to offer, so you got to take it because you know, if you– some of you, if you asked, you’d be refused because you know you aren’t much and you’re afraid the women will know you aren’t much.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: It’s not right. Young black women don’t even have the opportunity to get to their teens sometimes, walking down the apartment uh, corridors. We need to build a movement to stop this, ‘cause the Man doesn’t care. He doesn’t care if we kill each other off or each other, he doesn’t care. He’ll not worry himself until we happen to kill a white person, then they’ll be down with all the– all the artillery. But as long as we’re killing each other, nobody going to worry about it.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: Mexicans killing blacks, or blacks and Indians– that’s just, that’s just old hat, or poor whites. If you– you kill a poor white or some mangy white person, they’re not going to worry about that, but when you start follow– uh, bothering somebody that’s, you know, a little more establishment white, then they get all nervous about that. Well, we– we think they should be nervous about that. We don’t want anyone killed, but we’re also tired of the fact that black people cannot walk without an– an ice pick or have to walk with rocks in their– their purse and afraid to be out after seven o’clock at night. They talk about crime in the streets, white folks been just yelling about it now. We’ve had it for twenty years.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: And that’s what we really need here. Not just a healing service, we need a movement.
Scattered voices in crowd: That’s right, that’s right.
Jones: We need an organization that resists evil and overcomes it with good, not just stand around and looking big, and acting smart on a corner. That some– they gonna run this one off or run that one off, that doesn’t help any community.
Scattered voices in crowd: No.
Jones: We want to walk through this community, but not with the attitude we’re gonna run anybody off, but that we’re walking down to help you and to smile and to give them– but to show, blessed God, if you take on one of us, you’ve got the whole pack of us to take on.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: It’s sweet. Today the– the miracles just been– have been so wonderfully great that uh– you that did not hear it, the editor of this newspaper, large newspaper in Los Angeles, Herald Dispatch. You can order it back in the– to my uh, right, Sister Morton [Bea Morton, aka Bea Orsot]who is the membership secretary also is the secretary for subscriptions to this paper. A woman came in my meeting last week, and it was a powerful demonstration of unity, great miracles were wrought, but the communications from my fellow believers were the things that, uh, that was the thing that touched her heart, and she went out saying that this is indeed Jesus Christ.
Voice in crowd: Yeah.
Jones: This is indeed Jesus Christ reincarnated, and she said I’m going to give a free sermon of his every week, and so she kept her word. My sermon is on the front page of this paper that reaches out all over the world. She has– she has chains in Ohio, throughout the East and uh, throughout the uh, service, she sends this so our sermon– says, “Pastor Jim Jones of Peoples Temple Speaks, Los Angeles. In a time when churches cannot be found practicing what they preach, one minister is doing exactly that seven days a week,” and it goes on and on.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: I read again. She said, “The federal officials from the United States Comm– Commission on Civil Rights called the Peoples Temple ministry the only working interracial community in the United States, and the Herald Dispatch ownership agrees. Beginning with our January 18th issue, Pastor Jones will submit a weekly sermon for the benefit for all of our thousands of readers.” (unintelligible phrase, spoken twice)
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: God is on the march.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: So glad. Now we– that’s Los Angeles and Sister [Marceline] Jones is down there today, ministering to more people than are in this room–
Voice in crowd: Oh yeah.
Jones: –because that’s what– on Thursday night I’m going on Thursday nights these days. I want to talk about another bus commission so I can get a bus maybe to go down one way, and some of you can stay there to help me with some legwork that we need to do. Los Angeles is such a mean city, it needs more of us.
Scattered voices in crowd: Yeah.
Jones: It really– it really is a mean wicked city–
Scattered voices in crowd: Yeah.
Jones: –but the masses– the masses are really coming on Thursday night without any notification whatsoever, the Temple was filled. The right balcony, left balcony– you could put, I don’t know two or three of these buildings, maybe four of this in that Temple. That Temple is a big Temple, and it was filled on Thursday night. You who have not gone with us, why don’t you take a trip with us next Friday and uh, after the meeting here, and travel down the way. I come back by air. I was there on Thursday and came back for this– for this last Friday night’s meeting by air. I would like to take some down in a bus, from the valley, that could work in the community, work around the church, help them with organization, and you could stay over and I could come back here for Friday night service and take another bus on down. Uh, we– we need to– we need to be there on a regular basis because Los Angeles is booming, and we want to show them that we are not uh, going to give in.
Crowd: Yeah.
Jones: You see we’re glad to report the miracle of Pinky sitting over there, if she’ll stand. (Pause) Last Sunday, this sister had a stroke, a massive stroke that paralyzed her all over her body, she couldn’t move anything, and uh, I called her back from the stroke by saying how much I needed her, and commanding her to– to awake, and she came out of it. And– But they took her blood pressure, she had a total cerebral hemorrhage, a massive stroke. I said she was out, that was it. She was completely immobilized, completely paralyzed, and I had instructed– that’s why you need to listen to every word I say–
Crowd: Scattered murmurs
Jones: –I said before the congregation, thousands that were there, I said, “Do not go out in the street today.” I said, “There’ll be trouble in the street. Don’t go out.” But people forgot it and at the end I said, “Don’t call an ambulance. I don’t like the attitude of this ambulance crew here.” I said, “Don’t call an ambulance,” but someone slipped up and called an ambulance just to check her when she was– I’d brought her back, she was conscious and everything was working, but they took her blood pressure, and her blood pressure was still over 200, you see, because I’d brought her back from over 300 where the stroke had just–the blood mass had gone through her brain. And I– I said we can just have her checked with an ordinary doctor, and let’s take her, but nurses being precautious, they got an ambulance. The ambulance came, these two white attendants, and they were as mean as they could be, you can tell by the way she’s looking there. They’ve treated her like she was a sack of wheat or barley and uh, unkindly, unkindly way, it’s indescribable. They refused to let her down they didn’t want to dirty her stretcher, they made her walk out and they booted her into the ambulance, and made her sit here. And we said that she wanted off, she didn’t want on there. And so Brother Brown here, young man who works for a city agency here, never been arrested, Brother Cleveland Jackson here who works for a federal agency, never been arrested in his life, protested it, and that man said dirty M.F. nigger, get yourself away from here and so forth and so on, and took his flashlight and started whipping at us, and the next thing we knew the police came on from everywhere.
Voice in crowd: That’s right.
Jones: Everywhere. Helicopters over our head, police out there with billy clubs. Sister Jones protested one of our– our young, I think John Brown who was grabbed and manacled, and he– seven of ‘em were on him, pulling the neck back, and one of our sisters, the blond little sister back here, Sister [Tish] LeRoy, they grabbed her by the neck and pulled her over the fence and my son, little– littlest twelve-year-old son [Jim Jones, Jr.] put up his hand for his mother, and they poked him in the belly, and he fell down for a moment.
Voice in crowd: That’s right.
Jones: And one of our sisters I had to heal– I had to heal. I’m gonna tell you, I’m telling you the truth. Yeah. How many people saw this mess?
Scattered: Cheers and applause
Jones: It was a mess, this was a– this was a hellish mess that went on. One of our young women is in the hospital, a spleen ruptured and she was bleeding to death and her heart stopped, if I hadn’t meditated, she’da been dead. And they fortunately avoided surgery. That’s what went on by the so-called people who are supposed to keep the law. Anyway, we got our– we got our sister off of the ambulance. (Laughs)
Crowd: Scattered laughter
Jones: They looked around– They looked around and said where’s the patient?
Crowd: Laughs
Jones: ‘Cause while we were tassling, somebody else went over there, got her, and got her off– (Laughs)
Crowd: Laughs
Jones: We weren’t gonna let one of our sisters go to a– with a bunch of beasts like that. She was protesting, so they looked back and said that– Now all this– one of the policemen, he had a sense of humor, he said all this fightin’ and he said the patient’s gone. (Laugh)
Crowd: Laughs
Jones: And that’s the way we stick together. (unintelligible word) they slapped my– they slapped handcuffs on Sister Jones for protesting it, and rou– took her and put her behind her back and throwed her in the police car and sent her to jail, first time my wife even had a talk with a policeman, much less be arrested. And they took uh, the young man and he come from CBS [Michael Prokes], and he’s sitting up there in the front row of the balcony, they– he asked some questions, they throwed him in jail, and they throwed this brother in jail, and they threw Brother Brown in jail. And I went around and says, take me, take me. And they wouldn’t take me, ‘cause there’s two or three thousand people there, you know. And I went in to the people and I car– give them a message, I said I’ll be back, if I’m not arrested. And I knew what was in the wind in my subconscious, I knew what was in the wind, I knew when they would get me down there, they thought they’d see what they can do. So I went in to bail them out, got in and started talking about those white bigot attendants– ambulance attendants and they come in and says, you’re under arrest. Now if I’d done a crime, why wouldn’t they arrested me an hour before?
Scattered voices in crowd: That’s right.
Jones: They just slapped the– put handcuffs on me, and put me in the jail. There’s blood on the floor, I guess they thought that’d impress me. I just said I’m going to take a rest, and I looked them straight in the eye and laid down.
Crowd: Laughs
Jones: I said I need a rest. They said well, if that’s the way you feel. I said that’s the way I feel. A little bit later they came back in, one man, nice, Commander Roland came back and said a man like you shouldn’t have to be behind bars. I said well, it’s a good experience. Said a whole lotta good people behind bars, and uh–
Crowd: Applause
Jones: –so I– I said uh, it’s a good experience. And he said well, your good– good– your bail is only 600 and, whatever it was, 75 or 95 dollars, you’ll be out in no time. I said oh no, I won’t be out. I said I’m saying. He said– he said, you staying? The other man said– he dropped his mouth, and he said, we’ve had a lotta people want to get in here, uh, out of here, but nobody want to stay. I said I’m gonna stay because black people can’t afford to bail themselves out and I said, I’m their leader, I’m their– I’m their pastor. I’m going to be a Father, you can depend upon it, wherever I’m at. And I said, if all people can’t afford to bail out, so I’m in, I’m saying in. I said it’s not right for people to be able to buy their way out of jail. If you can’t trust a person out on the street, don’t let them out, but don’t let some rich hoodlum buy himself out while some black person has to stay in because he doesn’t have the money, or doesn’t know the right people. [I] Said I’m staying in and I–
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: It was wonderful. They had Sister Jones all ready to fingerprint her and take her off. Three minutes they went back and they weighed that a little bit and they come back said, we decided not to arrest you. We’re going to– we’re going to uh, turn that over to the District Attorney and uh, let him decide whether he wants, and I said whatever, because I said I will not bail myself out, so they let me out, but the charges were still heavy against these brothers. Felony, assault and battery on an officer. We were the ones that got assaulted. We were the one that got the battery, and– and we– we were the ones that got it. She was the one that was kicked and boo– boo– booted into an ambulance, an older black mother. Oh, I’ll tell you, we’re living in a dictatorship. You don’t know it, it’s already on us, around our necks, it’s hanging over us. But I um, I said well, we’ll get together. There only thing the Man appreciates, that’s strength and unity. And even the attorney said, “Well, it won’t do any good to have the first appearance, uh, it’s only arraignment. They won’t drop charges there.” I said, “Let’s see how many people we can put and see what happens.” I told those brothers the night before, “I know we get this down to misdemeanor.” And so the next day we came in there, a hundred and some strong, between a hundred and two hundred people, and all come in there smiling at each other, looking around, and hugging each other, and coming in and um, arm to arm, shoulder to shoulder. (Laughs)
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: They didn’t open their mouth. They just looked out over that crowd and said, “The– the– the charges are dropped to misdemeanor.” (Laughs)
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Voice in crowd: That’s what they did.
Jones: (Voice rises) So you– some of you think you’re here for healing. What you need to do is get here because you need somebody to look after you, and you alone can’t fight this system, but when you’re together– when you stand together, we can do something about this opposition.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: Doesn’t take much unity, doesn’t take too many people. Just a handful of people, but if they stand together, the Man don’t know what to do with that bunch.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: So we had an interesting week. Arrested one minute and not arrested the next moment, and charged with assault and battery the one moment, the next moment a misdemeanor. And that should tell you something. You’ve heard me talk about I’d go to jail for you, but this time these brothers can say they saw it.
Crowd: Scattered cheers and applause
Jones: They saw it. I didn’t fool around with it, and I stayed in. They were in, so I stayed in.
Crowd: That’s right.
Jones: And then they decided to let it out, you see. They didn’t want to charge us, and that’s what we’re gonna always do, and that’s why you should get behind this church with all your mind and soul. We put up eleven thousand dollars in bail money. For others too. One brother that’d been converted, he’d been beat down by the system. He– he was supposed to get ten years. He walked through there and it looks like we’re gonna get that down to– It’s already been moved from the Federal Court to the State Court, and it’s quite possible he’ll get off with a probationary sentence. And there was– it was no doubt, the attorney said, he facing ten years, so don’t tell me – this is not this case, this is another case, he was converted, he– he used to be with heroin, he got victimized uh, in the role of being a pusher. Someone else let him carry the weight of it, and he ended up getting the charge of being a pusher, and that’s a hard thing to get out of, but you know we got him out, he’s here in the h– house tonight. He’s here today.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: And it’s interesting, that uh, he’s being transferred to the same courtroom that they’re gonna be in, for the– the final– his final disposition of the case, so if we’ll get ourselves together – and we really do need to. We had uh– we had our attorney too, we had our attorney. Our church got our attorney for our brothers, and that’s what they’ll do for you. You stand loyal in the family, that’s what we’ll do. We had them standing right there, the best. We don’t intend to get any pikers anymore because we– we’ve been uh– we’ve had our dirty work enough, and we’re gonna stand together and get the best of everything, but it has been a costly week. Now if you care about your future, you’ll help with the brothers and sisters that went through this– this week, won’t you? So this morning I’m gonna ask you especially to stir up your heart for a special giving. Eleven thousand dollars went out from this family in bail last week. You know another church that put 100 dollars out for you? Nahh–
Scattered in crowd: No.
Jones: They wouldn’t put a hundred bucks on you. Say well, uh– I– one lady said, “Well, people get in trouble, they don’t need bail.” You oughta– Listen. You ought to take example from her because when she said that– the uh, usher that told me that she said that, I went to her and I said you get out of here. Because when you wouldn’t stand up for one of our black mothers who’d been kicked around and put in an ambulance against her will, when you wouldn’t stand up for that and go to jail, and you then have the nerve to say they deserve to get what they got, we don’t want you in here.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: We don’t want you in here. ‘Cause you and Uncle Tom, Aunt Jane, we got uh, we got enough Oreos, we got enough Oreos. We don’t want any Oreos in here at all. These folks that’re black outside but white inside, we don’t– we– we don’t– we don’t need any of those folk that act like they’re– they’re so, uh, so white. You know you’re not white. Anybody in here– Isn’t no white persons in here, are there?
Scattered in crowd: No.
Jones: Anybody white here?
Scattered in crowd: No. (Laughs)
Jones: (Laughs) Course not. Because you’ve identified with the problem. If you’re working for liberation, than you’re black, honey and– Listen, I never saw anybody white except when they’re dead. The only white folk are laying on a slab, so you don’t want to be white. We’re all mixed up, but anybody loves freedom’s black. Right?
Crowd: Right. (Scattered applause)
Jones: So I wonder at this moment if there’s anyone has a very special gift to get on that bail, ‘cause that money’s going to be tied up for some time. We had to put out fifteen hundred dollars for an attorney. We want the best criminal attorney in Los Angeles. Don’t you think?
Crowd: Yeah.
Jones: ‘Cause the uh– the criminals are trying to mistreat people, and we’ve got the best one in this town. Don’t fool with us, ‘cause if you do, you’re going to have to take this whole church on, that’s the way it is.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: You report anything that’s done wrong to you, you report to the council. We certainly except to keep the law, we’re not going to be involved in petty thievery or thug– uh, mug– muggers. We’re not going to do that, and we won’t protect you in things that’re crimes against the people. You commit a crime against the people, and we’re gonna give you a shellacking.
Scattered in crowd: Right, that’s right.
Jones: But if somebody’s committing a crime against you, you are going to have the defense of this church, and we’ve got– it takes money to do that, you know it does. How many here this morning will give something over a hundred dollars? Right quick. We have to take the offering this way this weekend. Hundred dollars. (Pause) Anyone here, over a hundred dollars, a hundred or over? Right quickly, come on, help us out. Who will be first to pledge or give 100 dollars this– this very morning?
(Tape edit)
Part 2
Man: Okay, Reverend Jim Jones is one of the most unique and effective religious leaders on the scene today.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
(Tape edit)
Jones: I am very happy that this protest meeting is taking place, and that so many of you could be here. I hope that meetings such as this will be taking place all over the nation, and that they will be attended by people of conscience everywhere. It is our duty as human beings, no matter what our political persuasion, or religious preference, race, or nationality, to raise one unified voice of protest of indignation of outrage against the terrible exploitation and oppression that is taking place in the Union of South Africa. It is most critical, it is most critical that a wave of protest arise that will shake the conscience of the Western world so that the inhumane practices and illegitimate Nazi-like white supremacist government of South Ap– Africa can and will be stopped.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: It’s really important that we black, brown, and poor white people who are undergoing oppression here in the United States make our protest loud and clear. We must realize that black and colored people of South America– South Africa who are experiencing the most vicious forms of racism and oppression in the entire world, that we can know of today, are our own brothers and sisters. We must identify with their situation, their plight, their struggle, for it is ours. Sometimes I think we get removed, we get removed. Last Sunday we were privileged to have with us Mrs. Unita [Blackwell] Wright, the mayor of Mayersville, Mississippi. Fortunately one of our ladies happened to look outside between our building and caught a you– a man [Thomas Dawsey] listening with a tape recorder. Then a process began which was long and tegious [tedious], contacting people of good will throughout this state, even inside a U-Rental Car agency. And there we found out the location of the or– origin of these people, and they came all the way from Mississippi. If you’ll read the Sun Reporter this week, you’ll began to get just a glimpse. In a few days I’m going to be releasing a letter to several sen– senators and congresspersons, and then you will know the extent of how much interest there was in one brave little black woman that has struggled for civil liberties in the South and just happened to visit China, which is everyone’s right. She didn’t even come to emulate China, she came to talk about the rights of all people, and yet she got the interest of people so high in government, it caused me to shudder. So freedom is at stake here. It’s not just a matter of thinking about the Union of South Africa, we are being intimidated still after Watergate, steer– still after all the revelations of the CIA, it is still going on. It’s no longer theory, because we have absolute bona fide proof that it’s still going on.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
(Tape edit)
Jones: (unintelligible word) W.E.B. DuBois charged that black people in the United States had been tricked into discounting Africa, and disassociating themselves with– from the culture and history of our country. The trick, DuBois explained, was to exchange the promises of equal status here in America for the slavery of the majority of our people in Africa and in other parts of the world. It has been too many of the churches and politicians who are responsible for creating this terrible division, this cultural disassociation between so-called American blacks and black people in the rest of the world. American blacks have been persuaded that we are somehow better, luckier, more privileged or perhaps even saved by having been brought to this so-called Christian nation from pagan darkness or savagery. This vicious strategy of divide and conquer has ever been the tactic of the oppressor, the exploiter and it forms the unbroken tradition of the treatment of non-white people in this country, in spite of our heritage of democracy, freedom, justice, and equality. That is our paper heritage.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: I start to lift my two fingers and it’s to she– it’s a shame that this meaningful symbol that used to mean peace, you’re afraid to use it anymore, because Mr. Nixon [former President Richard Nixon] made it so dirty.
Crowd: Scattered cheers and applause
Jones: Peace, peace. Let’s face it. We have been disinherited. We in American have the unfulfilled promises of American democracy dangled in front of us, and it is becoming increasingly clear that the promises will remain unfulfilled in too many spheres. Indeed, with the announcement of the Bakke decision last month, together with the many other disturbing signs which I’m– may speak of in a few moments, it is becoming quite clear that black and brown people are being put on official notice that we are no longer wanted in the mainstream of American society.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: Now when we look at the situation in South Africa, we are really looking at what amounts to American colonialism. The combination of brutal racial and economic exploitation is no accident. It is a formula that is designed to make the few rich and powerful at the expense of the many. It represents a rigid class system that puts dollars– profits first and human rights last. It is a formula that was patent by western se– society centuries ago. What is most critical about South Af– South Africa and the most important reason for us to be most seriously concerned about the situation in that totalitarian regime, is that South African society reflects that this country could well be heading towards. Indeed for those who have eyes to see and to read the signs, it is becoming evident that this is indeed the case. The Kerner Commission on Civil Disorders several years ago preticted– predicted that America is fast becoming two societies, one white, the other non-white, separate and unequal. In recent years we are seeing racism rise again across the land with upsurges of the Klan, that almost took over the prison of New York and today brought com– uh, brought division and riot in the leading prison in Georgia. And in the swelling of the ranks of white supremacists and vi– vigilante groups, I can tell you that they’re swelling, because we have a children’s home in the suburbs in this great metropolitan area, and it’s swelling by the moment. Am– Anti-Semitism and anti-black feeling is on the rise, if we have much more economic disorder, and we will. We’re gonna see racism that will make us familiar with what our brothers and sisters are going through in South Africa. Even moderate Roy Wilkins, in stepping down from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and I think it’s time we– we talk so much. I even hesitated to get up here. We talk so much. Everyone here before they leave tonight, at least belong to the National Association for the Advancement of Co– Colored People one of the most moderate spokes uh– agencies in America, and yet we– it nearly died just a few weeks ago and still is not out of the woods. It almost died economically. It’s one thing to voice a lot of rhetoric about freedom, it’s something else to back it up with our money and our actions.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: Roy Wilkins, when he stepped down, said that America is heading for a racial showdown but what is even more foreboding is that the combination of technological advances and rising unemployment is quickly making poor and night— We non-white people in this uh, country and even poor white country, white people in this country virtually obsolete. Mere wards of the state, a nuisance, a drain on the budget, a liability, unwanted. And with the growing racist sentiment, a way has been opened up for legislation and court decisions that are turning back the clock of civil rights advances. One example of this, as I said, is the Bakke decisions which many hundreds of members of Peoples Temple protested recently as some of you hundreds of others downtown. This symptom of de facto racism in America would eliminate deserving minority people from the colleges. It’s effect reported by the Los Angeles Times will be to make our colleges and universities lily white in just a matter of months. In the wake of automation and rising unemployment, new and frightening economic theories are being proposed. Even some backers such as Uncle Tom economists. I won’t name them, I’m too angry to name anybody tonight. If it– if implemented would return blacks and even poor whites, up to 40% of the population, according to the Newsweek article, to a state of servitude. This brand of economics, which is known as cleometrics, would represent a kind of findel– kind of final solution for non-white poor people, and if it’s 40%, that means that a whole lot of white folk better re– wake up and realize that they’re niggers too.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: This happening– this is happening today in South Africa obviously and it is your (unintelligible word), but suddenly it’s creeping upon us as a paralysis of death. Tomorrow it may be happening right here in an overt way. The proponents of these economic theories argue that blacks are better off as slaves, even happier. This unholy alliance between economic pseudo-science and racism reminds us of Nazi Germany, and we have to remind ourselves tonight that one heads of the larger– one of the large churches of America situated in a mansion of 30 rooms in Michigan was a butcher in Bulgaria that murdered German children, uh, Jewish children rather, Romanian Jewish children, and Bulgarian Jewish children, and hung them up and stamped Kosher meat. And he’s still in here, in this country because he suited Mr. [Joseph] McCarthy’s anti-communism in the 50’s, and there’s sixty others like him in high places still, naturalized citizens of these United States that participated in one of the bloody– bloodiest– blood– bloodbaths that we’ve every known. We know that in Germany racial hatred under the Nazi’s followed a certain progression. It wasn’t quick. First civil rights were taken, piece by piece from the Jews and others considered to be inferior human beings. Then the non-desirables were made into slaves in forced labor camps. Finally they were exterminated. The same syndrome is taking place in South Africa, the sham homelands or Bantustans are the scenes of mass starvation and misery. Even our television shows mass graves of those children that die daily and our corporations signs, American corporations all over. It’s not just stopping buying a few coins. A great deal of our economy is based on the blood and sweat of our brothers and sisters in South Africa.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: Great majority of diamonds, machine tools, meat, mutton, lamb, hides, you could go on and on, there’s no end. Look at any scene of the Union of South Africa and see if you recognize any of the corporate names. See if you recognize the great motor companies, and the great rubber companies, and the great industrial companies of the United States. Don’t you uh– one time you can’t look at the TV without recognizing that in many sense of the word. one could conclude that the Union of South Africa is a colony of the United States corporate elite.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: These Bantustans tonight are the scenes of mass starvation and misery. Even in the cities and barracks for workers, the conditions are abdominal, less than human. American corporations pay stub– sub-starvation wages routinely to blacks, some as low as 16 cents an hour. Meanwhile, the children are dying. The graves are dug in advance, death by starvation and disease is a forgone conclusion. And one asked as we look around in America today are we witnessing the same frighteningly– frightening progression? Are we considering uh, properly the conditions of South Africa today in America? Are we looking at a nightmarish vision of our own future here in the land of the free which still has one of the greatest opportunities for all people if we’ll exercise it? What is so frightening in our land today is that we don’t exercise it. I don’t know what Mr. Carter promises to bring, but the thing that concern me is that our people gave him our endorsement before we even found out what he had to offer.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: And as we traversed, as we traversed the ways– and the highways of this city, we would speak to many of our people and say, he has to be a good man, he’s a Baptist. That means nothing, my friends, because in the churches where Angela Davis grew up, four little black children were blown up and allegedly they were blown up by Baptist who left the white Baptist church and came over and to this day have not been prosecuted.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: Peace. I want to say to you who threatened, and threaten that we’d be bombed, and we’d be shot today if we came in here, I had a rather moderate talk. But the more you threaten, the more some people will be aroused.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Voice in crowd: That’s right.
Jones: We will not be deterred. The concern we must identify with our South African brothers and sisters, just as we must identify with the Jews or any other people that’re oppressed at any time, let us recall to you the German clergyman [Martin Niemöller] who suffered under the Nazis, attitude prevailed today. He wrote that when the Nazis came after the Communists, he did nothing, for he wasn’t a Communist. And when they came after the Jews, he did nothing, for he wasn’t a Jew, and like many Protestants held prejudices against the Jews. The same for the trade union– unionist, and the Catholics too, when they persecuted them. Finally, he said, when the Nazis came after him he said that at that point there was nobody left to stand up for him. All had been taken away. That’s what’s going to happen to us. I am standing on this platform with socialists tonight of various de– varieties and descriptions, I’m standing with the Nation of Islam, and I think it’s been obvious in the press that Peoples Temple and the Nation of Islam are very close. I will stand with anyone that loves freedom, and I will protect with my right there– my life their right to have speech.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
(Tape edit)
Jones: –test, our protest here must first of all must be a clear demonstration of the solidarity and compassion we feel for the people of the illegitimately-ruled captive nations of South Africa, and Rhodesia. By the way Senator [Dick] Clark of Iowa needs to be sent a letter by everyone in this room. We’ve had so much pussy-footing in high places, but Senator Clark said today or yesterday, he said America was birthed by a revolution, and we certainly said it was a legitimate thing to fight for our freedom, and he said that he felt that the American government should stand on the side of the– the– the– the Zimbabweans, the– those of Zimbabwe and say those of the– Rhodesia that are oppressed and say that, they have the right to fight for their freedom. It’s too bad that people have to fight, but it doesn’t seem that we’re able to talk our way to freedom in South Africa.
Crowd: Scattered cheers and applause
Jones: Peace, peace. He will suffer much censure for that, he will suffer much criticism, and quite likely an election, so we ought to at least say a thank you to him. That would be the best thing that could come out of a meeting, actions of various type. The existence of the apartheid re– regime of [South African Prime Minister B.J.] Vorster, the Vorster government, its very existence is a testimony to the total failure of western society and especially to the nations that’re supporting the hateful regime. To their total failure to live up to the humanistic principles of their constitutions, to their pious promises of inalienable rights and equality and justice for all. A failure to live up to the ethics of the spiritual teacher who they supposedly model their lives after, what a total abomination that Mr. Vorster’s party would call itself the Christian party. Yet it is not at all surprising, for in the name of Christianity, and in the name of civilization, in the name of all that is good and right, white western culture has murdered, brutalized, enslaved, tortured, and exterminated his doctor brothers all around the globe and there has been no change in that legacy of blood.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
(Tape edit)
Jones: Today on the Bantustans of South Africa, on the wastelands that are a sham homelands for once-proud and flourishing people, millions are starving and will starve. Both cities and countryside have become nothing but concentration camps. Every day, Christ is crucified a thousand times. I’m so sick of hearing about Christ coming. Christ is already here, and he’s being crucified in South Africa.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: Peace. ‘Cause it was written, anyone that denied that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is anti-Christ, everyone that came, the light of conscience, that light within them was Christ in them the hope of glory. Are we to remain silent tonight, yet what is happening today is very momentous for the robber barons, the exploiters, that vicious breed of exploiters who are using the slave system of apartheid to squeeze out profits. They are cheating by their own iniquity a force that is beginning to turn and cry out, “No more, we have had enough.” And on that echoing syllable and on that everlasting no history is being turned around. The wretched of the earth are now beginning to rise up in South Africa. The seeds of a new order are being sown. If American free enterprise wants to survive, it better humanize itself. It better humanize itself very quickly, or the whole of the continent of South Africa will hate us with a passion that could not be registered in the annals of conscience. So it’s most important today that we affirm our unity with the oppressed of Southern Africa, their exploitation can no longer continue, their struggle is ours. Beyond divisions of space and time, beyond divisions of language and cultural background, beyond differences of race and religion, there is an underlying human identity that we are he– that we here tonight confirm. The crime of our civilization has been to divide people. The great sin of religion has been to create divisions, to lose sight of the fundamental human identity beyond the labels, the denominations, the doctrines that are just uh– that are just used to separate us. Or– or so many times we have four or five churches in a block, about the only thing that looks good in our block is the liquor store and the churches, because that’s a nice way for a man to have a Cadillac without working.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: Thank you, thank you.
(Tape edit)
Jones: By no means do I make the sacrifice I’d like to, because I fell sickened when I can think of a beautiful soul like Mrs. Unita Wright who went over with Shirley MacLaine, a po– woman of prestige and honor, a mayor of a Mississippian city that can go to China and for that have agencies so powerful in this country that would stagger your mind. And following her, shadowing her all the way from Mississippi, and then reporting to the highest levels in our society. I feel so incensed tonight with the threats that came into our church about a bombing just before I came and that wo–I would be shot here. I feel so incensed frankly that I’m alive. I feel incensed that I am not over in the Bantustans fighting with them, because it seems to me that there’s a great apathy in this country and I hope that it soon changes. Tonight gives me some encouragement, although as I look out, I see still a great number of my own members, but I look back there and I see some fine young people that I do not know and I– and this– these that are moderating this meeting and I hope that you will join them on Wednesday and out of this will come a movement for the people that will have no particular ring of personality cult. There was too much clapping for me tonight. As the man said, we need to clap for the people. This is a people’s movement. We’re gonna have to get away from personalities, because that’ll divide us quicker than anything. We need to unite around the common struggle of freedom of oppressed people wherever they are.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: We must– we must not fall prey to the trap. We must not fail our mission of unity and compassion by quibbling over petty distinctions. We must not worry whether we’re setting next to a Communist or not. We got into that era in the 50’s, and we’ve got a lot of Nazi murderers in our midst, so we must quit worrying about political persuasion or religious persuasion and recognize that as long as people stand up for freedom, they are our sister and they are our brother.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: I’m gonna skip over a great deal of this, because there’s been enough words said. The aspirations of the majority of disenfranchised and encaptive peoples are in danger. Our investments were in danger, and that’s what’s the great concern to so many in this country, and that’s their concern period. That’s why they’re there. And any provisional solutions to the man– the demands of the enslaved peoples of Southern Africa on the part of the white western powers will be motivated, you can be sure, by the same factors that prevailed in Southeast– Southeast Asia in the 50’s and 60’s. I’m waiting on Mr. Carter, and I hope and dream and desire, that he will represent change, but I know that the past few histories, the past–past few decades have not been too bright. I cannot forget South Vietnam. The same motivations that prevailed in Latin America, in Central America and in so many other areas around the world: profit. The love of money which is the root of all evil. Even the Bible says that’s the anti-Christ. So you that love profit, you’re the anti-Christ.
Voice in crowd: Right.
Jones: Our investments in South Africa must be protected, say the robber barons. I say tonight, to hell with your damned investments.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
(Tape edit)
Jones: We want freedom, we shall have freedom, and if you don’t give it us on our terms, we shall seize that freedom.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
(Tape edit)
Jones: I have a– I have been a pacifist all my life, and I still hope and abide by the feeling that somehow love and goodwill will be able to change mankind. But I remember when we– some of our members a few years ago chose to give Angela Davis help in her hour of plight, and we’d help even a John Bircher, because we don’t believe anyone should be persecuted for their beliefs. But just a few days thereafter, we went through a nightmare that I would never have believed. In came a newsman [Lester Kinsolving]– thank goodness he’s been sent on his way. A Right Reverend that used to be a newsman here for one of the establishment newspapers. He came, and he went through our church with no desire to even look at our children’s homes, our senior citizen homes, our legal services. He had no desire– he had only had one desire, to persecute us because we stood up for freedom. Things are a little better in the establishment in the– in San Francisco. I’m not sure that things are better across the nation. And I want to say, and it’s tried but true, that eternal vigilance is going to be the price of our liberty. And those days I don’t think are entirely gone because, I thought last Sunday, I hope maybe they were. That time the reporter had three operators monitor all of our lawyers’ phones and my phones for two t– solid months. Where did he get his money from? Where did it all come from? He traveled to the headquarters of my denomination to two conventions from Texas to Indiana to try to get on the floor and denounce me as a pinko. I don’t even know what I am, but I know I love liberty.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
(Tape edit)
Jones: –fractions. Empty pious phrases that have lulled this nation into dangerous apathy. We must realize that unless these great principles are secured in South Africa, in Zimbabwe, that democracy will be in peril here, it will be meaningless here. We don’t want to forget that even now in the prisons in America, the majority are people of color, and many are being experimented on. That um– a good reverend that spoke– spoke out for liberty, Ben Chavis, is in jail for so many years, you cannot count them, (claps hands once) that there are p– more political prisoners in Carolina than all the United States put together. Many times more institutions in the east than in California, so it’s a little bit removed from us somehow, we don’t recognize how oppressive American society is in many areas, and it’s bad enough if you want to look around in our ghettos. If you want to look around in some of the prison conditions even in our country, if you want to look around at the local jail, you can still find some pretty undesirable conditions. My friends, we must look around us. If we wake up out of the apathy and complacency that social and cultural and religious brainwashing has spread over the land– particularly religion always talking about pie in the sky. I’ve heard that ever since I was a child, and I don’t believe in no pie in the sky.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: Thank you, thank you. They used to tell me that when I lived in conditions where the ice would come through – and many of us have lived worse – the ice would form icicles on our bed, and my sweet grandmother, because she didn’t know any better– better would say pray. Say, look up and pray. One day I looked up and prayed and the only thing I ever got when I looked was a bit of bird manure on my forehead.
Crowd: Scattered laughter
Jones: We had better arise, we better get practical. Jesus said today is a day of salvation, Muhammad said it. We must seize the day. Jesus said, if you would serve him, if you want to inherit any kind of life, he said feed the hungry, clothe the naked, release those that are oppressed and those that are in captivity.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: Let us bring back– let us bring back to American society– We are hearing our radios filled with nonsense about Jesus coming. And along with it you listen to one of the great Bible spokesman I see is on 600 different radio stations, he said the nig-gra were happier in slave days. He said they’re so happy over in Union of South Africa, I just came back from there, and he said they don’t have the trouble problems that the American black, or he didn’t say black, the nig-gra. So bad he wanted to say another word, but he couldn’t quite get– come to being able to– to accept that fact or feel that the media would accept that fact. So let us bring that Jesus back that they’re looking for, that Jesus that turned the world upside down, that Jesus that went into the house where– that was supposed to be a house of deliverance for all people and took a whip in his chan– hand and cursed the money changers out of the temples.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
(Tape edit)
Man 1: It’s coming, ya’ll– I’m– All right, um, that meeting is at 1830 Sutter Street, the YWCA, 7:30 on Wednesday night to um, continue things like this happening. I have a um, a message of solidarity from a speaker that was supposed to be here that couldn’t be here. Uh, Willie Brown who was assemblyperson from the 17th district. “Dear friends, I regret that I cannot be with you tonight to protest the deplorable situation in South Africa. You know my thoughts are with you, and that my voice will always be raised for this cause and struggle. Willie L. Brown Jr.”
Crowd: Cheers and applause
(Tape edit)
Part 3
Jones: (Starts mid-sentence, oratorical tone) and it will be eradicated, it will fall by its own unnatural weight. Even with ignorant people, even with ignorant religion being taught pie in the sky and the sweet by and by. This system is bound with its contradictions to fall completely apart. It’s on the road to total disarray, and when it does, then even the ignorant church folks, when they get hungry, they’ll quit talking about manna from heaven and streets of gold, they’ll decide to build a little bit of heaven on Earth.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: It’s wonderful. I saw in that paper that our Sister Allen that I healed both her and her daughter of cancer, it has a minister who came out for socialism. And um, it was in the Chronicle, beg your pardon, San Francisco Chronicle, he came out for socialism, even though he still believes in all that mess about the furniture of heaven and the temperature of hell he came out for socialism fully. So more and more they’re going to do this, because they’re going to see hunger. When eight hundred million people are gonna die before your eyes, people’re going to quit talking about how beautiful heaven must be.
Scattered voices in crowd: Right.
Jones: They’re gonna be more concerned about how nasty hell is, and they’re gonna do something about it. (Pause) That was a good point, very good point. Anyone else? (Pause for question from audience)
(Tape edit)
Jones: Honkies are the only– unfortunately they’re smart, they stored away and nobody will be able to get it but a Mormon. (Pause for a question from the crowd) What do you think we’ve been doing?
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: You know, we wouldn’t let no Mormon racist honkies beat us getting up in the morning.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: I got enough wheat to drown everybody in this church tonight with wheat.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: Don’t tell her a thing, ‘cause we ain’t sharing our wheat with no honkies.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: –or no Uncle Toms or Aunt Janes. (Pause) Those Mormons are fearful people. They won’t let black people in their temple. They’re building a great monumental shrine in Washington, but no one will be able to go into it of color, won’t be able to even walk in it. That’s not only black, that’s other races too. But those Mormons do look after their people that give so much of their money. However, if you go on welfare and cannot pay your tithes, and I mean that you have to pay it faithfully, 10% to the church, 10% to the store house. If you don’t pay it, the moment you stop, you get no food, they promise you nothing. But in this church we say that each one that’s in our family from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. It is a shame, a crying shame, certainly those that are going to enjoy the greatest blessings are gonna be those that give more freely in support with their time and resources. But the Mormons– the moment you quit paying, they drop you, they will have no responsibility for you. If you have a financial reverse and go into poverty or bankruptcy you don’t get any assistance whatsoever. If you go into a hospital, they say it’s a lack of faith on your part, you can’t pay your bills, you– they don’t pay your bills. Um-um [No]. They won’t give you a grain to eat. Fact, that money, most of it has to be paid back. If you use anything from their storehouse, you have to pay it all back. They’re an outfit that’s not worthy of consideration, but at least they do have some food together to keep their ugly selves alive. (Pause) They know what time it’s getting.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: Now if white people – and Mormons are all white – if white people know how bad it is and are storing food in caves, then why would black people not know how bad it is?
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: Any black person should see how bad it is.
(Question from audience not audible)
Jones: Well, because of greed. You see the farmer is going broke, and he won’t give it away, even though he can’t pay for the calves so as you saw yesterday they killed 600, 700 calves, slit their throat, throwed them in a grave. That’s a crime, when our own black people are starving in Mississippi at this moment. Another group did say they were going to send them to Honduras, those starving brothers and sisters in Honduras. But they will not set– put in on the market here because it would lower the prices. See, Big Brother controls everything. You don’t want those prices to go down. So they’d rather kill them and let the maggots eat them, than to have poor little black or white children be able to keep from starving. That’s a horrible crime, and they’re gonna pay for it.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: I know some of you people wish that you could dream, or prayer, or sing a song of sixpence to Jesus and hope these things would go away, but these are troubles that are before you. And each man and woman must work out this plan of salvation in fear and trembling and if you can’t face reality, you’re going to lose your immortal soul.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: Only the perfect shall enter the kingdom of righteousness in the new order of socialism, only those that are striving for holiness without any spot or wrinkle, without blemish, only they that see God will be they that have no spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: If you’re spotted up with the love of the world, spotted up with support halfway of the racist system, you’re involved with one foot in the Promised Land and one foot back here in this greedy world, you’re gonna lose your soul. I would have you hot, sayeth God, or I would have you cold. The lukewarm I will spit out of my mouth.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: It’s wonderful, horrible but wonderful because–
(Question from audience not audible)
Jones: Well those– America is in a terrible shape. You see we’re– this is going to be– that’s why we need to get to the promised land, over there in the Promised Land there’s oil. We’re fifteen miles from the richest oil deposit in entire western hemisphere. We are out of oil, and without oil, you can’t develop the kind of fertilizers and the ingredients, and nitrogen, that’s necessary to grow anything. Oil is the staff of life. This nation is going to see the worst starvation of any nation on Earth. Even though we’ve been first, the first will be last because oil is going to take the place of money. You see that in the Revelation where it speaks of oil and barley, bargaining with oil, measures of oil. Oil will become the money of the future society. They’re going to Cuba because these socialist nations have the staff of life. Cuba has offshore oil. Cuba has sugar. We don’t have any sugar. We tried to starve those people to death. We’ve boycotted them, wouldn’t even let them have medication, wouldn’t let them have penicillin, wouldn’t let them have anything to survive. Now we have to go like a whipped dog with out tail between our legs, begging them to resume trade. That’s why we’re over there, ‘cause we need what they got.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: (Tone moderates) They survived as only the sons and daughters of God Socialism can survive. You can’t survive without this spirit of Socialism. Pentecostalism, as it was on the day of Pentecost, they had all things common. Hey, socialism, if thou will be perfect, go sell all thou hast and bring it to the apostles’ feet and then it’ll be distributed from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: Say, I don’t want to do it. And if you don’t do it, you’ll live with the people that’ll be struggling. Your own sisters and brothers will rob your homes, will come in and kill you. Your own daughters and sons will come in and rob you over a crust of bread.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: You had better come and go with me, to find life, and life more abundantly, or your own kin will cut your throat with a dull razor to get one morsel of bread.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: Capitalism is the anti-Christ. The love of money is the root of all evil, and it’s going to be so perilous that you will not dream it could be so bad, because that evil system– and this is the seat of the anti-Christ, America. Capitalism’s seat is here. We openly glorify our dollars. In the dollar we trust. T he dollar is our god. We openly glorify that we trust the love of money that everybody should love money. [Reverend] Ike says love money, it’s the source of all light. Love it, love it, want it. Doctor Ikenhoff, Eikerenkoetter, Doctor Ikenhoff is the antichrist spirit, he and many like him, they openly say you need money. Only power you want is not people power, not power to help people, but money power, greed power, that fulfills the awful prophecy of scripture: the love of money, capitalism, the root of all evil. The antichrists are all over this nation. We are the only hope. My God, get on board little children, get on board.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: Our offering was extremely short. I’m going to ask a pledge offering to ask if you will stand. We must get ready. Reverend [Archie] Ijames and Brother [J.R.] Purifoy are buying a ve– a vehicle that needs to go over our waterways. Both a land truck and a water vehicle, it can just travel right out on the water to transport our foods from different parts and equipment from different parts of our Promised Land area. Money has dropped off, the offerings here have dropped to about one third. We’re only getting one out of three dollars that we used to get. The depression has set in. [You] Say, well, I’ve got a whole bags of money, but your money– I’ve got an article here that says your money isn’t worth anything. The only place it’ll worth something is over there where we can get land where we have this rich resources of oil, gold, and all the food growing, even food growing wild. Your money will not– it’ll be devalued one day, they’ll tell you it’s not worth anything. They’ll call in all the money, and they’ll say, we need your money and they’ll give you back a new kind of currency, and it’ll probably have not one-tenth the value of the money that you have. In fact of the matter, if you’ve got ten dollars in the bank, even drawing five percent interest, your ten dollars, if you put it there last December, is worth eight dollars now. You see, money is worth no more than what it’ll buy. [You] Say, I got my money in the bank. You think you’re smart. You’re a fool. [You] Say, I got my money at home. You’re a worse fool.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: Because at the bank, you at least get five or six percent, and you still lose money because there’s a twenty percent inflation. You can’t– well, you know the price of beans from 19 cents to a dollar twenty something. You know how bread has risen out, way out of staggering your imagination. So your money is worth no more than it’ll buy and some of you hold onto it. Somebody come up here and started to say, oh Father, I kept my money on me and my landlady stole seventeen hundred dollars off of me, come in and got it right off of me. I said, you want me to get it back, when you should have put it where you could have saved it and it would have gotten something for you? I said it’s too late. I said how many times have you told me have you been told not to do that? Oh, he said, I don’t know but he said it’s just so hard, you know, said that’s all I had. I said, no, all you got is your Father, and you better realize that.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: He said, well I thought she was such a good woman. She said– she even made love with me, and she said it was so good. Yeah, it was so good, because she knew where the money was and robbed him of every dime of it.
Crowd: Cheers and applause
Jones: That happened here and the same thing that happened to Brother [Earl] McKnight up in San Francisco. Had money, and his landlady come in and did it to him too. Hundreds of dollars. He’s a good man, I brought him out of the wheelchair. Why don’t you learn that that money cannot be any more value than what it’ll buy, and every day you see it buys less than the day before. So why don’t you get it over there where there’s no inflation, where land is going up, up, up, up, where there’s food growing, where there’d always be aplenty for everyone. That’s where you ought to invest. I’m going to ask you to stand at the first, this– this last op– opportunity. Will some of you sacrifice? There’s a down number. I suppose this bus situation has not helped us through these months, through these weeks, but we’ll have to just pick up the pieces and you that are faithful, will you make a special sacrifice? You heard what is necessary to protect our lives this month on Sunday, the sums of money. Is there anyone in this room that would say, Father, I will raise a thousand dollars? I don’t (tape edit) out of their head when they went to the border to get to freedom. They had their gold teeth pulled out of their head and then they were throwed in boxcars and sent off to gas chambers to die. It’s coming, don’t you think it isn’t. I wish it wasn’t. If it were not so, I would’ve told you, it’s coming. Who’ll give a thousand? (tape edit) –operated on, cancer was gone, Doctor Curtis said I– I know you’re one of those Jonesites– Cancer was gone. He brought his entire Church of God in. He’s going back, Reverend Ijames, the black brother, is going back to get things ready and they want that boat filled. We need a lot of good records for the library there, so that our people have lovely recreation, they’re working hard for us. We need little games, chess, checkers. We need sheets, blankets, canned foods, blue chip stamps. We need everything that you can bring. Gold rings, jewelry, everything that can be converted into the staff of life, food, land. Thank you. Forty-four, forty-four that was a– (tape edit) –away, she’ll be here Sunday, and I hope you’ll be here with her [Marceline Jones]. You should never let her down.
Crowd: Scattered cheers and applause
Jones: She carries my spirit Socialism and many healings are done when she’s present as she calls them out through me, ‘cause I know who’s coming even though I am someplace else, I know who’s here. So you need to be here and also you need to go with us to San Francisco this weekend, we need to be together and fill our house as much as possible in these last terrible days. So there are reservations still to be made on the bus going to San Francisco to do so. Yes?
(Question from audience not audible)
Jones: Both.
(Question from audience not audible)
Jones: Thank you. Forty-Four, forty-four is the number that is for our well-being and protection. It’s the last opportunity, please move freely. We have helped black people, every black person that’s been persecuted, prosecuted, we’ve been there, so we’ve done all we could to wake black America, and wake the poor of this Earth. Now we’re trying to get our people ready, so we’ll be prepared to come back after the day of desolation. Desolation’s gonna come at noon day, the elements gonna melt with the fervent heat. There’ll be destruction of every city in America. Blood will flow in the streets. I want you out of the way when this comes.
Crowd: Scattered cheers and applause
Jones: So if you walk out on this, you won’t get on our beautiful boat. You can walk out of here with respect and put your hand up and tell us what you’re doing, and only one on the floor at the time, we are not going to have it. And if you don’t think we mean it, just mess with us and we’ll show you.
Crowd: Scattered cheers and applause
End of tape
Tape originally posted March 2008