In April 1976, Peoples Temple launched a new publication called Peoples Forum. The first edition was more sophisticated than the newsletters that the Temple had published in Ukiah, with photographs, a more professional layout and design, and with articles of interest to the general public. It also announced a “circulation” of 600,000, although most of the copies were passed out on the street by Temple volunteers or dropped on doorsteps of houses and businesses throughout San Francisco.
Future editions of Peoples Forum were published in a broadsheet format on newsprint, although its mode of distribution remained the same. For the most part, it met its initial goal of becoming a monthly newspaper, publishing on a regular basis through the end of 1977, but it would never realize its ambition to be California’s third major newspaper.
Peoples Forum, vol. 1, no. 1, California Historical Society, MS 3800, Box 77, folder 1210
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