(Note: This tape was transcribed by the late Michael Bellefountaine.)
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(Note: This tape was one of the 53 tapes initially withheld from public disclosure.)
Beal: [My name is] Geneva Beal, and I would like to testify, tell some of the things that uh, that Christ that’s working through our Pastor Jim Jones have reached out and touched me many times. The doctors had gave me up, and I had cancer at the brain. But Christ that’s working through Pastor Jim Jones healed me of cancer at the brain.
Congregation: Hallelujah.
Beal: The same Christ is working through Pastor Jim Jones. He healed me of cancer, helped me to go down and pass the cancer. That same Christ that’s working through pastor Jim Jones have saved me of many heart attacks, many, many strokes, saved my daughter from being raped. And I am very grateful for the Christ that’s working through Pastor Jim Jones working. Miracle worker.
Congregation: Right.
Beal: Keeps on doing great things for me.
Voices in congregation: That’s right, amen. (Applause)
Bordenave: Good evening, family and friends. My name is Selika Bordenave. I’m sure we have a lot of you that was here last night that heard me testify that I was supposed to have had cancer, and I had- when I went to surgery, I did not have it. Now I did not say that I had went to UC hospital because I wasn’t satisfied. I was aching in the breasts. But the Christ within my pastor let him know that I needed further treatment, and he called me out last night, and I’m so happy that he called me out, and I said, “My, my, what a great- What a wonderful person he’s got to be, that Christ worked through my pastor to teach him how to call each person that’s in need“-
Voices in congregation: That’s right.
Bordenave: -and when you in need, believe me, he will call you. And I must have needed him because really, I did- which I didn’t show any cancer during the uh, surgery, but my breast was aching and I said, “My, my, my what a wonderful man.” Just to show you. Now I don’t have to tell nobody this. He called me out.
Voice: Now, that’s all right.
Bordenave: Now that’s just to show you what a great person he is. Thank you.
Congregation: That’s right. (Applause)
(Pause) (Tape edit)
Woman 1: I was healed from heart trouble through the Christ that worked in our pastor Jim Jones. I- I had heart trouble so bad I was afraid to lie down. I was just affray- just afraid I was going to go to sleep- uh, just go die th- in my sleep. And he have healed me of cancer. Oh, he has just healed me so I just- I just- just can go on and go on and go on and go on, and uh, he healed me from- I was supposed to have heart surgery, and I went to the hospital to have the heart surgery, and the doctors told me, said, “Well, you don’t need heart surgery now.”
Congregation: (Applause)
Woman 1: Said you don’t need heart surgery now.
Congregation: All right. (Applause)
Woman 1: Said you’ll probably need it later but you don’t need it now.
Congregation: (Applause)
Woman 1: And oh, I just thank our- the pas-our pastor so much, the Christ that works through him. Thank you.
Congregation: All right. (Applause)
Woman 2: You know, it’s something else when the doctors is getting ready to cut you open, (Pause) to cut you open to look into your heart to see what they can do-
(Tape edits)
Man and woman sing duet of “He’s So Real to Me”
-real/ He’s so real to me/ Oh, oh, yes, he gives me victory/ So many people doubt him/ I can’t live without him/ That is why I love him so/ He’s so real to me/ He’s real, real/ He’s so real to me/ Oh, oh, yes, he gives me victory/ So many people doubt him/ I can’t live without him/ That is why I love him so/ He’s so real to me/ (woman calls out) Come on, clap your hands. If you know God, you would clap your hands. (sings) He’s real, he’s real/ He’s so real to me/ Oh, oh, yes, he gives me victory/ So many people doubt him/ I can’t live without him/ That is why I love him so/ He’s so real to me/ (woman calls out) One more time (sings) Oh, he’s real, he’s real/ He’s so real to me/ Oh, oh, yes, he gives me victory/ So many people doubt him/ I can’t live without him/ That is why I love him so/ (woman calls out) One more time! (sings) He’s so real to me/ Oh, yes, he’s real, he’s real/ He’s so real to me/ Oh, oh, yes, he gives me victory/ There so many people doubt him/ But I can’t live without him/ And that is why I love him so/ He’s so real to me/ Oh yes/ Oh yes (Tape fades)
(Pause)
Woman’s voice from congregation: Thank you, thank you.
Man’s voice from congregation: Go ahead on.
(Woman singing classical, operatic music – “How Great Thou Art”)
(Tape edit)
(Woman sings “Great Things for Me”) Well, he keeps doing great things for me/ Oh, he keeps on doing great things for me/ If I had ten thousand tongues/ I would praise his name with every one/ If I had ten thousand hands/ I would raise them all to praise his name/ He knows me better/ Much better/ Than I know myself/ And he takes better care of me/ Than I can take of myself/ Oh, he keeps on doing great things for me/ Oh, he keeps on doing great things for me/ I said, now if I had ten thousand tongues/ I would praise his name with every one/ If I had ten thousand hands/ I would use them all to raise his name/ He knows me better/ Much better/ Than I know myself/ And he takes better care of me/ Than I can take of myself/ Oh, he keeps on doing great things for me/ Yes, he keeps on doing great things for me/ You know that he keeps right on doing great things for me/ Well, he raise the sick/ He open the eyes/ That’s something (unintelligible)/ There ain’t nothing about raising the dead/ He keeps on doing great things for me/ Oh, he keeps on doing great things for me/ I said, if I had ten thousand tongues/ I would praise his name with every one/ Well, if I had ten thousand hands/ I would use them all to raise his name/ Oh, he knows me better/ Much better/ Than I know myself/ And he takes better care of me/ Than I can take of myself/ Oh, he keeps on doing great things for me/ I’m so glad/ You know he keeps on doing great things for me/ Oh, he keeps right on doing great things for me/ Well, he raise the sick, and he raise the dead/ Five thousand souls he has fed / He keeps right on doing great things for me/ He keeps on doing great things for me/ Oh, yes, I’ll tell you now/ He keeps on doing great things for me/ Well, now if I had ten thousand tongues/ I would use every single one now to praise his name/ Oh, now, if I had ten thousand hands/ I would use them all to raise his name/ Oh, he knows me better/ Much better/ Than I know myself/ And he takes better care of me/ Than I can take of myself/ Oh, he keeps right on doing great things for me/ I said, now he keeps right on doing great things for me/ Oh, he raise the sick/ He raise the dead/ I said five thousand souls he has fed/ Keeps on/ Well, he keeps on/ I said, he keeps on/ Oh, he keeps on/ You know, he keeps on/ Oh, he keeps on/ Yes, he keeps on/ Whoa, he keeps on/ Yes, he keeps on doing great things for me/ Oh, he keeps on doing great things/ Oh, he keeps on doing great things/
(Tape edit)
Woman sings “He’s Able”: (first two lines unintelligible) But we often know not, know not, which way to turn/ But there is one/ Who knows the road/ Who help us carry/ Who help us carry our heavy load/ Don’t you know God is able/ He’s able/ He’s able/ Yes, he’s able/ Clouds may gather/ All around you/ So dark and stable/ He’s a friend/ He’s the father/ He’s your joy/ He’s your hope/ Oh, surely/ Surely/ Surely/ Surely/ He’s able/ To carry/ Carry you through/ (speaks) Now I’m gonna tell you one more time. (Sings) (same two lines unintelligible) We often know not, know not, which way to turn/ Yeah, but there is one, yeah/ Who knows the road/ Who help us carry/ Who help us carry our heavy load/ Don’t you know God is able/ He’s able/ Yes, he’s able/ He’s able/ Clouds may gather/ All around you/ So dark and stable/ He’s a friend/ He’s the father/ He’s your joy/ He’s your hope/ I said surely/ Surely/ Surely/ Surely/ He’s able/ To carry/ Carry you through/ (speaks) Do you know what I’m talking about, family? (Sings) Don’t you know God is able/ Yes, he’s able/ Yes, he’s able/ He’s able/ Clouds may gather/ All around you/ So dark and stable/ He’s a friend/ He’s the father/ He’s your joy/ He’s your hope/ Oh, surely/ Surely/ Surely/ Surely/ He’s able/ To carry/ Carry you through/
Congregation: (Applause)
Voices in congregation: Hallelujah, all right.
(Tape edit)
Jones: -Neighbor, give them a holy kiss. It’s good to know one another in the apostolic faith. Yes, you may be seated. The only sanctuary there is in these uncertain times is with people who love God, and God is principle. It is written God is love, and love then must be God. It said, whosoever loveth is born of God and knoweth God. This nation is indeed a sick nation, perishing by the moment. I’m the chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority, Chairman of the Commission on Housing. Just come back from Washington. If anything would be- make you depressed, if anything would give you the heavy heart that Jesus had on his way to Golgotha, you could know a little bit about it, because he said we had to go through the things that he went through. He said we had to be made perfect, even as he was perfect. He learned perfection, he was made perfect through suffering. And he said, when I go away, these things shall you do, but greater. Greater suffering, greater miracles, everything greater. That’s what he said, not only the same things shall you do, but the same things and-
Voice in congregation: Greater.
Jones: -greater.
Voices in congregation: Right.
Jones: When they took him away, he said for what good work do you take me away? They said for no good work, but because you being a man, make yourself God. He said, it’s written, oh, generation, foolish generation, it’s written ye all are gods. And two thousand years later, we’re still struggling with what Jesus tried to reveal to people’s hearts. Today, having met with the leaders of this country, and in a short time will be meeting with the sister of President Carter [Ruth Carter Stapleton], because his wife asked me to meet. I dined with Mrs. [Rosalynn] Carter a few- a few weeks ago and got to know a little bit as- a- about her as an individual, enough to know this, that no matter what her intentions, they don’t know how to cope with the problems that we are faced with in our land today. And such misery as they feel that you don’t ever hear, that the sister, Mrs. Stapleton- you know, you’ve read about her and her concern about healing matters, that the wife of the president said go out and see Reverend Jim Jones, because he has the answer. And I thought yes, yes, we have an answer but if- if people will listen, we have an answer. Most people are not prepared to listen so it’s doubtful whether you’re going to have anybody respond, because they won’t listen to the answer. I had an hour and half with her, I dined with her, because- not because I’m anything, because we have a lot of people. We have a lot of people because we take care of our people-
Voices in congregation: Right.
Jones: -and that’s the commandment. It said, bear one another’s burdens. It said minister to the necessities of all the saints or all the believers-
Voices in congregation: Right.
Jones: It said take care first of the household of the faith-
Voices in congregation: Right.
Jones: -so in our church, there are all these wonderful ministries- ministries, beautiful convalescence homes and beautiful children’s homes, and lovely, lovely centers for our aged, and legal services free and free medical clinic and free physical therapy where we have Jacuzzi baths and ultrasonic treatment to- Not only do we depend upon faith, and faith does things in our Temple. I’ve never seen in my life, because I’ve never known a people that can live to the degree that we are able to say that (ministerial fervor) we’ve never have one die in our assemblies that have not been raised from the dead.
Congregation: (Applause)
Jones: I’ve never known such a testimony- not in any time or any hour except that which I read about in former days. I have never been in a place where nobody can die in the presence of the living God.
Voices in congregation: Praise God! (Applause)
Jones: So there is no question about faith, but faith without works is dead. Faith that doesn’twork is dead and faith without works is dead.
Voices in congregation: (calls out)
Jones: So you have to indeed put some legs on all of your faith and all of your prayers and all of your meditations and all of your worship. There have to be legs on those prayers.
Congregation: (Applause)
Jones: (Moderates, then builds throughout) And we have those legs to a degree. We have beautiful children’s homes on the most lovely acreage that you’ll ever see in America in California, and the most beautiful – as I said – physical therapy equipment and facilities and medical facilities, and we feed our people, and we live together as they did on the day of Pentecost. If you don’t have any income in our church or if you have too little income, we all- we have seventy different homes in which we all live as it was on the day of Pentecost, we all share and have all things common. If somebody only has fifty dollars and somebody else makes four hundred, we share and we all eat as they did and was revealed in the church on the Apostolic day.
Congregation: (Applause)
Jones: I’m talking about big apartment buildings, big homes – not just seventy little houses – I’m talking about a great s- senior citizen complex of thirty-three apartments just to name one.
Voices in congregation: All right.
Jones: (ministerial cadence) [You] Say, what does it mean to have all things common? It means you don’t have to worry anymore.
Voices in congregation: Right, that’s right.
Jones: It means when all people are one family – as they were when the church was inci- conceived and was in inception on the day of Pentecost – when you are together as one, you don’t have to worry anymore, you don’t have to worry, you don’t have to worry, you don’t have to worry no more.
Congregation: (Applause)
Jones: (Full throat) Because when God- and God is a principle, God is love, and love cannot be something you just feel on Tuesday night or Monday night in a shouting meeting, it’s not something you feel when you clap your hands and dance, but love is a principle. (Moderates) It works like it does in a family. You- you couldn’t know love in a family, if the father of the family or the mother of the family had a nicer bedroom than the children and had more to eat than the children, (Voice climbs) but if it’s truly love, then everyone in that house, they all hold everything in common. You don’t say in your house that it’s yourliving room, you say it’s our living room.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones (Over congregation): Praise his name. Praise his holy name. I’m talking about God, I know God, so I praise his holy name.
Congregation: (Applause)
Jones: (Full throat) When you know him. It’s not just some feeling, but it’s a principle, it’s an idea, it’s a government. It said the government is upon his shoulders. And unto that government there is no end. (Moderates) They want a solution in America today, and I listen to them talk about 60 million Americans about to lose their homes. I listen to 80 percent of the black people that own property in 1945 have either lost it or it’s going into receivership in the mortgage banks. (Voice climbs) I listen to 15 million people that are starving to death. I didn’t hear it from some newspaper, I heard it from the heads of the government of the United States today, ’cause I just come in from Washington, just flew in on the plane from the conference with the top notch leaders. I listen to them talk about planned takeovers. I listen to them to talk about it like it was an ordinary Sunday school picnic. And you don’t have to be (tape distortion) off to realize, it’s in your newspapers. Task force warns nation to get ready for riots and to get ready for martial law and to get ready for concentration camps. (Voice moderates) This is in the Hearst press just this week. Get ready for identification marks to be put on your body and identification number, even if necessary tattooed on you like the- our corporations have done in the Union of South Africa [see contextual note here]. [You] Say, aw, America wouldn’t do that. (Voice climbs) Don’t talk to me about what America would not do. We’re doing it in Union of South Africa. We rule that country now. Ford and all those Duponts and Rockefeller, they’re running the Union of South Africa, and our black and brown and poor people cannot even be out after sun- uh, out after sundown. And there’s a tattoo on their arm, and if they don’t show that tattoo, they go to jail.
Voice in congregation: (calls out)
Jones: And it’s not only that, (Voice drops) not only that, friend. Five and a half million in Union of South Africa last year, 1976, were sent out to the concentration camps in the Bantu region to die, because there’s not enough food. And you can look on your TV, if you’ve been looking, but some people, they’re looking at everything but what the truth ought to be. It’ll show tears, great lines of graveyards where our babies – brown and black babies – are dying in Union of South Africa. [You] say. what’s that got to do with us? (Voice climbs) Because the same corporations that rule this country, the same megalomaniacs, the same elitist, the same ruling class – Ford, Dupont, Chrysler, General Motors – they’re running the show over there. And if they will do that to our people over there, they’ll do it here when the trouble comes.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Man’s voice from congregation: Talk about it. All right.
Jones: (Voice drops, then builds throughout) It’s wonderful. Wonderful to know the truth, and the truth will set you free. [You] Say, it’s uncomfortable, but it also sets you free. But to hear that kind of thing coming out of the mouth of the government leaders and to hear them say, we have no answers. To hear the head of housing [Patricia Roberts Harris, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development] and to hear the head of welfare [Joseph Califano, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare], the president’s appointments, and to hear the presidential secretary [Press Secretary Jody Powell] say there is no answer. [They] Said we can’t have housing, and we’re not able to have enough food and enough shelter and medicine. We’re not going to be able to give it to the people. And yet they’re holding out a magic wand, making us believe that it’s going to get better. But if you were in Washington, friend, if you happen to be in government as I am in government- because I’ve always made my own way, I’ve always made my own living, I believe like apostle Paul, you’re able- he was out- he made tents. He fixed tents by day and preached all night, and I tell you today, we might get some truth from these preachers, if they had to go to work and had to know what it was to live out there, then maybe we’d get some truth from their mouths.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Man’s voice from congregation: Talk about it now.
Jones: Now last night, we saw the cripple walk and the cancer spit up and the cancers passed right over there before our eyes. But tonight we’re going to hear a little bit of truth.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: I haven’t been to bed since I came back from the Promised Land in South America, been in Washington all day and seen that mess of robots walking up and down, and nobody got the courage of a Jeremiah, nobody going to stand up and speak but me, there was onlyone that would stand up and ask any questions-
Man’s voice from congregation: Right.
Jones: (Voice moderates) ‘Cause they are all afraid of their shadow. Even though they’re not sure they’re going to have a job come June. They’re afraid to stand up and say, something’s rotten. Something’s corrupt. Spiritual wickedness in high places. They’re afraid to say it. And the great mayor that I had loved so much, that we had all defended when they tried to blow her up or something worse like that, the prin- the press wouldn’t print a word of it. And I saw her setting there clapping, (Hushed tone) sucked up in the system, (forceful tone) sucked up in the system. (Voice climbs) They- They buy you and they buy me, if we could be bought, but some of us have been purchased with a price and we are not going to be kinship with this world. Our God is not flesh and blood, but it’s spiritual, it’s a l- ideal, it’s Pentecostal socialism. We’re not going be oppressed by the tyranny of all the oppressive riches-
Congregation: (Continued cheers and applause)
Jones: (Moderates) It is written, the love of money is the root of all evil. Love of money is the root of all evil- (Pause) (unintelligible comments off mike, back to mike) That’s marvelous. Said that they got the Ku Klux Klan here in Philadelphia now too, and they’re wanting equal time because of Roots. (Short laugh) That’s- That’s the thing. That’s all they can see out of Roots, out of our precious people that suffered and bled and died, and then they made us think we made it. They said Roots. I knew- I knew we started- (Stumbles over words) now hold in here tonight. Last night we saw cancers passed, uh, but when you get to preaching the truth, everybody gets nervous. But you- you’re going to get the truth tonight, if it kills you, because it’s already crucified me.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: (Over congregation, in full throat) Hallelujah, I’m crucified with Christ, I’m crucified with Pentecostal socialism. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ that liveth in this body. It’s not a mortal you are looking at tonight, it’s not (unintelligible word) you’re looking at tonight, but you’re looking at the hundredfold, the very spirit and the actual conscious presence (voice drops dramatically) of a living God.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: (Ministerial fervor) Because one day I died. You can’t- you can’t be born again unless you die. And one it- one place sometime back I was combusted into a new life, into the apostolic life, into the Pentecostal life, into the holiness and virtue of the new age. And I’m not going to turn back. I’ve started for the kingdom and I’m not going to turn around.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: (Voice moderates, then climbs throughout) Now hear the truth, because you won’t get it in the churches. A few honest ministers that come in here, but you won’t get it in the churches, because they won’t give it to you. They want their anniversaries, they want their pastors’ wives’ teas, they want their pastors’ birthdays, and yet it is said God is no respect of persons. Anybody that goes to a church that gives people pastors’ wives’ teas and preacher’s birthdays, you are guilty of violating the commandment, because God said to treat no one with respect to persons. If you give a preacher an anniversary, then you should give every mother and every deacon in that church an anniversary.
Congregation: (Extended cheers and applause)
Voice in congregation: Right now, come on now.
Jones: I’m talking about God’s church. I’m not talking about that form that they have out there, that form that denies the power thereof, I’m talking about a church with socialist principle without (unintelligible end of sentence)
Congregation: (Applause)
Voices in congregation: Oh yeah, all right-
Jones: Hallelujah.
Voice in congregation: Talk about it.
Jones: Makes no difference what man may say. (Voice moderates, then climbs) The finality, we’re going to have to live up to the code that was established in Jerusalem when the revolution took place and Rome was overthrown. It didn’t happen that night, but themoment those 120 people of all races and all tongues got together, the moment they spoke with a new tongue – that wasn’t just an unknown tongue, but a new tongue – the momentthey were set on fire with the revolution of Pentecostal socialism, (claps once) that moment the dictatorship of Rome began to fall. (Moderates) And if we would have a 120 in Philadelphia tonight that mean business to live after the Pentecostal code. I’m not talking about speaking in tongues. We’ve been cheated. We got a masquerade going on today. [You] Say, don’t you believe in speaking in tongues? Of course. It’s a marvelous release, but it’s not going to build a church. People, they speak in tongues, that’s the first thing a baby does when it’s born. First thing. But a baby can’t feed itself. A baby cannot feed anybody else. (Voice climbs) A baby can’t take care of it- its own self, much less its mother, its brother or its sisters. You say I’ve got the Holy Ghost tonight because I’ve spoke in tongues. Honey, you’re still a baby, but Paul said that it’s time to come on up a little higher and put away those childish things. He said, when I was a child I spake as a child, but he said you need to get up. Only a child can take milk, but you need to get up where you can eat the strong meat, the strong meat.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: (Moderates, then climbs) Now we want to see God, and God can be visible today. God can create everything that he did for the early believers, or he’d be a- he’d be guilty of gross discrimination, and the principle, if it would work better for Jeremiah and Jesus and Moses than it would for you, then God violates his own laws. It would be discrimination and respect of persons. If people will get their mind and their hearts, their love and their dou- their devotion in the right place, then the same power – I don’t mean some power, but the same power – that was in the early church can be in our church but in a greater day, in a greater degree. (Moderates) Now in that day it was said they walked on water. I have s- been- we’ve seen that happen, friend. We walked- I have walked right across the waves when we went to Mexico and- We’ve seen it so we know. Don’t tell me it can’t happen. We stopped the rain all across the trip, we would – just lift our hand – we stopped the snow, when we were snowbound in Chicago a month ago, stopped it, and nobody could get in or out. You can check with the highway authorities, but I said we shall go through, and we were the only ones that went through.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: We’ve stopped the rain, we’ve caused the rain to come forth. We caused the dead to rise. How many through the anointing have I raised from the dead in this room? How many’ve been healed of blindness in this room by the anointing that works in me? You go out to the Temple, you go home where our- our people are, you’ll see dozens and dozens of people healed from blindness. Some from birth. How many have I healed of rheumatoid or arthritic crippling conditions? How many have I healed of cancer, the incurable disease?
Congregation: (Scattered cheers)
Jones: Hallelujah, hallelujah. I’m talking about the Christ in me making contact with the Christ in you.
Congregation: (Scattered cheers and applause)
Jones: (Voice builds) Mighty God. How many, as I said, have seen me raise the dead, how many’ve been raised from the dead? How many have seen me raise the dead into the thousands? By speaking the word. The word. We’ve seen them dead for three, four hours. We saw one dead in a morgue in a general hospital, and they went in and the child came forth, hallelujah.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: So I’m not going to give up on the power. (Voice moderates, then builds throughout) But do we want the power? We’ve got to meet the conditions. I believe that the power will work, when you meet the conditions. But if you want the power to work through you, you better get the right kind of circuit. And we got wrong kinds of circuits today. We’ve got flimsy little toy switches, and we got little toy electric lighting equipment, but if you want the power, you’d better get the dynamo, and the dynamo is God is love, and love is socialism, and that will give you power.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: (Voice calms) Blessed be the name. [You] Say, I don’t see nobody raised from the dead. You haven’t got the right circuit, you haven’t got the switch, and you may not have the operator. But you gotta have the dynamo and you gotta have the generator. And if you get that generator. [You] Say, what is a generator? The generator is Pentecostal socialism. As it was on the day of Pentecost, so must it be in the church today. When they were baptized – the moment they were baptized in the name of Jesus – what happened? They sold their possessions and had all things common. It’s beautiful to look down at seniors today that can travel all over the United States. Most of the guests that came here, this- this- the less than a hundred people that we brought uh, in to travel on, they don’t have any money. (Voice builds) They don’t have any money. [You] Say, how do they travel across the United States? Because we all live together, and the ones that work back there share with their seniors, because if anyone should be taken care of, it should be our seniors.
Congregation: Right, that’s right.
Jones: Said the elders were to be- We were to respect our elders. Well, our Temple respects our elders so much, they let them travel across the United States and Canada and Mexico sometimes three, sometimes four times a year, because they do what the church said it ought to do with its elders.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: (Voice builds throughout) You can look at- look at these elders – stand up – these elders. Look at them. Sister there healed of the cancer of the brain. I healed her of cancer because I believed, and I’ve got the power, the power in a little way in a little dimension, and I’d like to get it in a greater dimension in you, because if we’ll all put that power together, you know what I believe? He said, though you are dead, yet you shall live, and he that liveth and believeth shall never die.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: (Passionate) He didn’t say I came to give you a graveyard. He didn’t say I came to give you a burial plan. He said, I came to give you life and life more abundantly. What we got is graveyards. And what have we got? Cemeteries. (Voice moderates) And people dying now just from breathing the air, smog. You- you have to come back from our Promised Land across the sea. You say, you keep talking about Promised Land. Well, I told some of you about it last night. You can see all of the pictures back there and find out about it, because it’s beautiful. [You] Say, what’s that got to do with the church? Well, it’s all about taking care of the household of the faith. We got medical clinics, we got physical therapy, we got all those things but what about if dictatorship comes to this country? Like the newspaper says tonight, it’s gonna come. What about the fact the Ku Klux Klan has increased one hundred times in its membership in New York, till just a few months ago, it almost took over Attica prins- prison.
Voices in congregation: Right.
Jones: If you read your newspaper, your TV, it almost took over Attica prison. They almost stormed in and killed all the Indians and blacks and Mexicans. Where? Not in Mississippi, I’m talking about New York state.
Congregation: Right, right. (Cheers and applause)
Jones: Then it’s the church’s duty. It’s the church’s duty to have a place of protection for its people. We’ve got a place to protect our people. If we have nuclear war, we got a cave. [You] Say, how did you find it? The l- spirit of the living God showed it right down in the deep of the earth. We got one out in the west coast, you can’t find any end in it. Got water and food down there for nuclear war. But honey, there’s things worse than nuclear war.
Congregation: (Scattered response)
Jones: Dictatorships.
Congregation: (Scattered response)
Jones: Dictatorships that can come in, like they did with the Japanese. [You] Say, aw, this country won’t ever do that. They did it already.
Congregation: (Scattered response)
Jones: I don’t know how we could be so silly. The Germans started the war. They were all white. Um-hmm. [Adolf] Hitler was the menace that ruled Europe and killed seven million. Wiped out all the black, all the colored, all the Jews, every person a minority, wiped them all out, gassed them to death, even made lampshades out of their skin.
Congregation: (Murmurs approval)
Jones: Now I’m talking about history. If you don’t believe it- I just picked up a book in the airlines. And they’re getting ready- But they don’t talk about Hitler. We got a Hitler in Brazil, ruling Brazil, a white Hitler right now, a general [Ernesto Geisel]. We got a general in Chile that’s murdering people of color and all the working class, taking the breasts off of women, cutting off the gonads of men. General Pinochet. We got murderers all over – white murderers – all over the world.
Lone voice: That’s right.
Jones: Chile, Uruguay [Pres. Aparicio Mendez], Paraguay [Pres. Alfredo Stroessner], Brazil, hmm?
Congregation: (Scattered cheers)
Jones: Union of South Africa [Prime Minister Johannes Vorster], where our people cannot even walk on the sidewalk. But what do you see on Time magazine this week? (Pause) What do you see? It says the wild man of Africa. I just picked it up. Who’s on there? They’ve got all kinds of white murderers, but who is on there? Idi Amin.
Lone woman’s voice: That’s right.
Jones: The leader of Uganda. He’s black, and they called him a wild man, because he won’t be- I- I guess that he- that he just won’t take orders from folks. He’s just not used to the man pushing him around, and he chooses to think for himself, so they called him the wild man of Africa.
Congregation: (Scattered applause)
Jones: Why don’t they call Hitler– why don’t they tell us about the Hitlers that are white? Why don’t they show us all the wild white men that are running loose in this country today?
Lone man’s voice: All you ought to wake up now.
Congregation: (Applause)
Jones: I know we don’t like to hear that, ’cause truth is not pleasant to the ears, but you can see what they’re trying to get us ready for again.
Voices in congregation: That’s right.
Jones: Whole front page to a man that’s ten thousand miles away, trying to mind his business. Yet our planes raided his airport and killed several of his people, and he chose to stand and fight back, and now he’s called a wild man. But it wasn’t him that bombed American bases that we’ve been seeing on TV, the raid on Entebbe. (Incredulous tone) How can we possibly be so naive? We go into his country and raid his country and kill his people, and we call him the wild man, the wild man because he says he won’t take no more. He’s told folk he not going to take any more.
Voices in congregation: Right.
Jones: He called every American there, and he said I want to know tonight, are you going to give allegiance to Uganda, or are you going to work for the CIA, are you going to be representing the ruling class, the corporations? He said I want to know tonight, and they call that wild? I call that very intelligent.
Congregation: (Extended cheer and applause)
Voice in congregation: Oh, wake up now.
Jones: (Voice quickens) You can’t believe a thing you read. ‘Cause I know white people that are over there that’re living in peace, and he’s a very good and gracious man to them. And you can’t believe a thing you read. ‘Cause anybody that stands against the ruling class, the big banks, Wall Street, the corporation, the ruling class. [You] Say, why do you got to talk about that? Because that’s the antichrist. Said the love of money is the root of all evil,so you better find out what the love of money is. Well, the love of money that is the root of all evil is called capitalism–
One voice: That’s true.
Jones: (Voice climbs) -where you have a right to make a profit. Don’t make any difference how little you pay, how much you may enslave people. We’ve got most of our people are being put back into serfdom right now. We’ve got people right back into sharecropping. Not in Mississippi, half of Illinois. Half of the Illinois farms are owned by one bank in Chicago. Not only blacks now, but whites too are having their lands taken from them by rich corporations. Somebody going to have to tell the truth, and I’m going to tell it.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: (Moderates) If you don’t believe it- if you don’t believe it, go back and read the newspaper two weeks ago and see if one bank in Chicago, Illinois doesn’t own one-half of all the farms of Illinois. You don’t see any farms owned by people anymore.
Single woman’s voice: No.
Jones: You don’t see any nursing homes owned by the little people – the middle class, the average person – you don’t see farms or stores, the grocery stores or the little restaurants. They’re gone. Every place- Even now a nursing home- You can’t afford to get old in this country anymore. ‘Cause you’ll end up in a great big old corporate no- nursing home where somebody owns it that lives a thousand miles away.
Congregation: (Scattered response)
Jones: Better hear me-
Congregation: (Scattered response)
Jones: -because it’ll be our young that’ll be in jail. (Pause) Better hear what I’ve got to say, because you won’t get it again. And the more you start walking, the more I start talking.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: But who’s willing to listen? It’s seniors. Some of us know what it was. I may- I may not appear as a great-grandfather but I- I have lived through the Depression, and Iremember 1929. I remember that pasty flour, I remember the mush and the greens if you were lucky. (Voice drops) And friend, we’re on the border of another one. (Quietens) And I mean everybody in Washington talking about it. Not if. When? When? When is it coming? And we got the signs in the heavens above and the earth beneath. The s- the dust bowl, just in 1929, do you remember how it blew all the uh, the western fertile soil of the southwest, the Midwest, blew it away? Well, here we are. It’s happening again. You go out through the Southwest and Midwest, you’ll see dust storms – not rainstorms – dust storms. (Calls out) No water. [You] Say, I got plenty of water in Pennsylvania. Won’t do you any good if you got plenty of water in Pennsylvania, if there’s no water out in the wheat belts.
Man’s voice: That’s right.
Jones: And our wheat belts are not going to produce- There’ll- There’s gonna- There’s 70 percent loss of wheat this year. We used to have years of wheat in our bins. Do you know how many uh, days of wheat we got left? One day. One day. Now you see all these racists and how hateful they are to Chicano and black and even the poor whites? You see how they are now? Wait till- Wait till they’re out of water. You can read out in the west where they have a water shortage in one town, where they steal it from each other, and one white woman was shot down by her next door neighbor while she was stealing, while the- the white woman tried to pro- protect her own water, and the next door neighbor shot her to death. Now friend, only lucky thing is that that little town, that farm town out there in the west, happened to be all white, but if there’d been any Mexicans in that town, or anyIndians in that town, or any blacks, what’s happening right now – I know this to be fact, not just fiction, I know it to be fact – they’re going through where all the droughts are and asking- they have the nerve, the fire commissions and health departments will go through, and say we want to know where the black people live, so we can protect them when the s- when the riots come. They don’t want to find out where we are to protect us. No, no, no. Don’t you fall for that kind of a lie.
Congregation: (Shouts of approval)
Man’s voice: Listen now.
Jones: They want to find out where we are, so they can handle us when the time comes. They never have been worried about protecting us. Now some of you, don’t- don’t forget, (Stumbles over words) you look out there like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Some of you, you think you’re white, honey, but you’re just as black as I am.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: Peace. I got run through three or four sieves. Few- three or four white people come in and raped my- my people and made me a blend. People said he’s white. Don’t- Just as you say anything you want to about me, but don’t accuse me of no lie.
Woman’s voice: That’s right.
Jones: ‘Cause there ain’t no white people here in the first place. There’re no white people here but Rockefeller. When it gets down to it, that’s the only people going to be taken care of, so if white makes you right, honey, you aren’t white enough, ’cause if you were white, you’d be dead in a graveyard.
Woman’s voice: That’s right.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: Peace. [You] Say, I came to hear about holiness. You will. I’m talk- talking to you about the holiness without which no man shall see God. You got to get rid of capitalism, you got to get rid of the love of money which is capitalism, you’ve got to get rid of the corporate system that oppresses the people and holds people down in the class society. Now, what is your proof? Well, the Indians are all dead nearly. They’ve now got a class action suit, they’re trying to get it established, because Indians uh, they’re trying to get the Indians not to have pay Social Security, because Indians don’t live long enough to collect their Social Security. The average Indian – who owned this country at one time – lives to be 44 years of age. That’s what’s happening right now, not in 1980, uh, 1960, 1906 but 1977. The average Indian lives 44 years of age, and you– you precious ones- we who are black, we have seven times more blood pressure problems-
Congregation: (Scattered response)
Jones: –six times more likelihood of getting heart disease, four times more likelihood of getting cancer. I wonder why? I’ve got somebody that is a corporate uh, manager in a supermarket, he said they put the worst foods in all of our districts.
Congregation: (Scattered response)
Jones: He said- It only proved it to me, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, he proved it to me that they put everything bad, the meats that are old, the vegetables that are old, and they put in special dyes in our foods, (claps hands once) so that they’ll last a little longer when some of it’s almost ready to rot, and would cause you- you couldn’t stand to smell it- they’ll put some dye in it, so you can’t smell the rotten meat.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: I know what I’m talking about, (Pause) because he took me through and showed me the warehouse of the A&P.
Congregation: (Scattered response)
Jones: He showed me- with it- (Voice moderates) I saw with my own eyes what they do. They say, why did Watts blow up? Watts blew up because they were getting food that was two weeks old. Every kind of food from bread to meat was two weeks older than anyplace else. No wonder Watts blew up. It was a wonder Watts didn’t blow up long before it did.
Congregation: (Scattered response)
Jones: I’ll try to get to the point of what I’m aiming at, because if you don’t know, then you can’t do anything about it. The Indians once were in the millions. There’re now just a few thousands, and they’re mostly in reservations, which is a nice word for concentration camps. Japanese didn’t start the world uh, World War II, Hitler started it. Germans were supporting Hitler. You remember – some of you remember – blond-headed Germans, blue-eyed Germans were supporting Hitler.
Congregation: (Scattered response)
Jones: They had the Nazi American Bund right in this town and filled an auditorium right in this town and filled the Empire State Garden. They filled it. You never saw one of those Germans go to a concentration camp. Not one of those blue-eyed Germans ever went to jail. Every Japanese because they were colored-
Congregation: (Scattered response)
Jones: (Full throat) The moment Hitler got Japan sucked into the war, every Japanese was rounded up and put in the deserts in concentration camps, and they never got their houses back.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: (Moderates) I’m talking about truth, and I want to tell you, I am in the government. I got in there so I could see. There’s a plan called Garden Plot, there’s a plan called caber- Cable Splicer, there’s a plan called King Alfred Plan that has, not only concentration camps in store for we who are black, but the absolute annihilation.
Congregation: Right, that’s right.
Jones: Cy- Cybernetics, mutations created by messing with genes now. You’ve been reading in the paper, oh, a little bitty line here, a little line there, how the- some people getting upset because they’re messing with genes. You don’t read enough, though. Do you realize that most welfare mothers throughout the south and uh, the southwest that are black or Mexican get sterilized before they get their welfare? Um-hmm. Better hear me. You realize that just a few months ago, we have found the U.S. government had been experimenting on our black m- our black daddies? (Voice climbs) Since 1933, they allowed them to have syphilis, hundreds of them? Come on, now! Stay awake with me just a moment. Hundreds of them, they allowed them to have syphilis, and they watched them die like dogs. And they knew penicillin would cure it 35 years ago, but they watched them spit their stomachs out, watch their hearts be deformed, watched their brains rot and go mad, they watched them become paralytic cripples, hundreds of them, and it was all in your magazines. (Moderates) Jet spoke the most about it, ’cause naturally the white papers didn’t want to say as much, but you read about it. How many read about it? You know what happened.
Congregation: (Scattered response)
Jones: If you didn’t, you weren’t reading. They’re experimenting on us. In the prisons, 80 percent, nearly 90 percent, of all in prison are black or brown, Mexican, Indian and black. Yet it’s very strange that less than 17 percent of the population – that’s what we represent, 17 percent – strange. Why is it that 90 percent of us are in the jails and only 17 percent of uslive in the country?
Man’s voice: Think about it.
Jones: (Voice quickens) Why is it that just a few weeks ago just across here in New York, you read about a man that owns all those nursing homes. Great big corporations. Big white man. He got charged with ripping off the people with two and a half million dollars of Medicaid and Medi-cal. What did that do to those people in the nursing home? This is what it did to them. They were denied the treatments for their bedsores. They laid there until their bodies was rotting like something laying out there in the sun-ridden desert. They were denied their med- medications, their antibiotics, they were denied their painkillers like Demerol or codeine. All that was being ripped off by him. He was saying, they were getting it, but he was ripping it off. You read about it. His name was Bernard [Bernard Bergman]. I’m going to tell you some things – not go on much longer – but I’m going to tell you some things you’re not going to like because it has to do with whether we are going to build a church that will be able to resist the gates of hell. It has something to do with yourlife, and if you- I don’t tell you, then I’ve got your blood on (claps hands once) my hands, and I came here, not getting paid, and I’m sure not going out of here with your blood on my hands.
Woman’s voice: That’s right.
Congregation: (Applause)
Jones: Peace. All I can do is give you the truth. You can hate me. That’s all right. They killed Jesus, and they said they will kill us – in the last days, they will kill us – thinking they do what? God a service.
Congregation: (Scattered response)
Jones: (Voice moderates) You better wake up. Better wake up. Now, sister, you come to get healed or see healing, but you can’t get healed until you hear the truth-
Congregation: (Scattered response)
Jones: -and you just won’t sit down long enough. Look uh, uh, if you would sit up here like we sit up here and look at this audience, you would know why America is headed for concentration camps. Why it’s headed for hell. Because people are looking around and are irritable. They will not even listen to me, will not even watch me, right now. Just turn around and watch for the next five minutes, and you will see what I am talking about.
Congregation: (Scattered response)
Jones: People that I have given my life, hundreds of black mothers that I’ve saved that would- had no homes, that were in poverty, that had no way out, and yet some of them are setting here, shaking their heads at me while I’m preaching. (Pause) I don’t mean people that’re with me from- they come across the trip, ’cause they know what I am. I’m talking about some here that’ve even been healed, been to healing meetings and seen great miracles, seen me take people out of Philadelphia and give them a home. Every time I’ve come, I’ve taken some older person from some rat-infested dump in Philadelphia, and taken them to a beautiful home.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: Nobody wants to stand for the truth. Yet tonight if somebody’d say, (Sings) “Oh say can you see by the dawn’s early light,” (Normal tone) all of you be standing on your feet like fools.
Voices in congregation: Right, that’s right.
Jones: You know what you- brainwashed, I’m talking about, brainwashed.
Voices in congregation: That’s right.
Jones: (Full throat) You stand up for a flag that has murdered us. Three million of us have perished, three million of us have died. Our blood has been shed all over America. The Indians have been crucified, and yet if somebody were to sing, “Oh say can you see,” we’d be on our feet.
Congregation: (Applause)
Jones: (Over continued applause) But when we hear the truth, we’re not on our feet.
Voices in congregation: That’s right, it’s true.
Jones: Peace. It’s true. My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty. No, my country ’tis of thee, s- terrible land of inequity, that’s what it is.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: (Voice builds) I’m not singing about no freedom until freedom’s a reality. Where the spirit of God is, there’s liberty. You don’t have to fight to get your rights. Today in America – I just came from the government offices of Washington D.C. – today in America, the average black person makes 60 percent the wages of the white person doing the same work. He pays yet twice as much rent, and he lives in a neighborhood where the police are one-third as much seen. He gets one-fourth the fire protection, and he gets one-eighteenth the garbage collection. (Full throat) Don’t talk to me about a land of the free and the home of the brave, until everybody’s free.
Congregation: (Extended cheers and applause)
Jones: (Moderates) Peace. Because no matter how many people have come through – and I’ve been sieved through – I still know I’m black. I remember those times when they s- took my loved one, my grandmother, took her by force and made her have a baby, and some of you have forgotten it. Some of you forgot where you come from.
Voices in congregation: Yeah, that’s right.
Jones: And you can’t know where you’re going, until you remember where you came from.
Voices in congregation: Right, that’s right, talk about it.
Jones: But it all had to do with the love of money, which is the root of all evil. The capitalist system, the fascist system, ’cause he said the love of money, the profiteering system, is the root of all evil. And believe me, we’re in a root of evil the like of which you have not seen. The man in New York I just told you about ripped off people, and they died and rotted in their flesh, because they didn’t have their treatment. He ripped off their Medi-cal and their Medicaid. If some of you’d stand once in a while, you wouldn’t be so weary on your- uh, on your seat, but you never will stand. You don’t have to stand for me, you can stand now, ’cause some of you wouldn’t stand for the truth if somebody had a boat and you were drowning, you wouldn’t- you wouldn’t stand it.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: Peace. I- I know- I know some of you and- (Stumbles over words) you know, that the- the man- if you go into Ku Klux Klan meetings – and I have been right there, (Laughs) ’cause Jesus said, he was one that stirred up the people, he said they that- these are they that turn the world upside down – so I’ve been in a Ku Klux Klan meeting, ’cause I can get there. They don’t know what I am till I get there, then I stir up the people while I’m there. Peace.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: Peace. It’s wonderful. I want to say to you, the Ku Klux Klan, they’re (Stretches word) all standing, they’re all standing. Every time they say some of their simple hate, up on their feet they go. Up on their feet. Had a fifteen hundred rally in Indiana just a few weeks ago. (Hushed) They had a twenty thousand rally outside of Chicago, and they were all standing on their feet. (Normal tone) See, a lot of things we don’t know. That’s why we gotta get the spirit. Jesus said, we must live by the spirit, not by the flesh, not by bread alone, bread means the- the written code. We got to- we got to have the spirit. He said no man can know who Jesus is, no one can call Jesus the Christ except by the spirit of truth. I’m going to get down to some things that will disturb a little bit, but you have to hear them. I- I didn’t think maybe you’d have to, but I can see a lot of folk here need to hear it. I sure don’t like to say it, because I’ve been preaching for twenty years every night and sometimes three and four times a day, and I don’t get any anniversaries, and my wife doesn’t get any pastors’ wives’ teas. She works for the government also, and not going to be doing it much longer, ’cause I got my mind on something else.
Congregation: (Scattered cheers and applause)
Jones: Peace. She’s been- she’s over at the nursing homes and we’ve had to take them outof those nursing homes, where poor, poor whites- and a lot of whites don’t know who they are too. You know, we’re all niggers. “Nigger” means cheated. That’s what it means. And a lot of white folk that think they’re Rockefeller, but they couldn’t- they haven’t- they don’t know where next week’s uh, food’s going to come from. They’re living in the same crime-ridden streets, and they’re a nigger, and they’re looking around at us, and we say nigger. Honey, we’re- Everybody that’s not Rockefeller is a nigger, but I’ve got one thing- one thing I’m glad about. The first we- shall be last and the last shall be first.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: My son- my son Jim Jones Jr. is very, very black, he’s blacker than my minister to the left [probably Archie Ijames], and he’s taller than me by a foot. And he used to cry so when they called him a nigger. I said, son, that is a good word. “Nigger” means cheated.
Man’s voice: Right.
Jones: I said, go right back there, and you tell them, yes, I know what has happened to me, I know I’ve been cheated, and I’m going to get back what’s coming to me, and ever since he did that, he quit crying, and he goes so proud and he just stands so tall. He’s a field nigger. We got to know the people of this country – white, black, brown – that’ve been dispossessed, that are losing their properties, the poor have got to realize that they are the niggers that’re going to have to unite against those that are the rich ruling class, that are indeed the antichrist who love money which is the root of all evil. All evil. Now hear me out, and it won’t take too long. Over in New York, Mr. Bernard a few weeks ago, he was arrested, as I said, on one count out of 23 for two and a half million dollars that he stole from poor black people mostly and brown people and a few white people in his nursing homes. The judge stood up before Mr. Bernard and said he is a good man, he’s been a businessman for many years, and it’d be a shame to send him to a jail amongst common criminals. And so what you read your paper – if you didn’t read it, you should’ve – it happened just a few weeks ago, and you could’ve read what they did to him. They sentenced him to four months, not in jail, (Voice climbs) on the tenth floor of a hotel and gave him [a] black cook and a blackchauffeur and a black domestic to clean his house. Don’t tell me, I- I know and you know, if you read the newspaper. (Voice moderates) And they said, Mr. Bernard, we’re sorry, but you must be in at eleven o’clock at night, and you can go out after seven o’clock in the morning. (Cries out) But the same week, a man up in Portland by the name Borenson had been robbed, his mother had been robbed of her Social Security by those bureaucrats, and some of the worse bureaucrats are- are- are Aunt Janes and Uncle Toms that’s working those desks. They forgot who they are.
Voices in congregation: Talk about it, right on, talk about it.
Congregation: (Scattered response)
Jones: I mean, you’d think that they had stock in Social Security.
One voice: That’s right.
Jones: (Excited) You get on a telephone, a lot of them now- we’ve got a few of them on the telephone, I got one on the phone, you lose a little money on the phone, and you- you- you- they’ll make you so aggravated, well, I- I- I make them pay back those dimes, because there’s not supposed to be any monopolies in this country. Bell Telephone owns all of the telephone companies, and it’s supposed to be against the law. There’s supposed to be competition, there’s supposed to be a telephone company in every city, it’s not supposed to be owned by one great big corporation. That corporation is so big now – IT&T – that it overthrew the gilly- the government of Chile. It’s putting the concentration camps up in the black nation of Union of South Africa.
Voices in congregation: That’s right.
Jones: So I said, I want my dime back. She said, you’ll have to give me your name for your it- refund. I said, honey, I can tell you’re black. You think you must- you must think you’ve got stock in Bell Telephone.
Congregation: (Scattered response)
Jones: She said, well, I’m working here, and it makes no difference, I’m working here, and I’m going to look after Bell Telephone’s money. I said I wish I could get black folk as much to look after one another as you look after Bell Telephone.
Voices in congregation: That’s right.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: Well, I didn’t stop there, honey. I went on and got her supervisor. I got her white supervisor. She thought she was something big. I said, listen, I lost a dime, and that woman talked awful to me. She got her on the phone and talked to her like a dog. And then I said- she said, sir, give me your name, and I’ll file a complaint against this woman. I said, here, honey, you’re a field nigger just like me. I said, no thank you, supervisor, I just wanted to- her to know who she was.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: (Cries out) She was working so hard to take care of the white man’s money, but she- that white woman that got on- the supervisor just above her talked to her like she was a dog. And if I had been a man that had not been born again and filed a complaint, she’da probably been fired. But I wouldn’t do that, ’cause I always look after one another. He said we’re to bear one another’s burdens. Says it doesn’t have anything to do with black. Honey, it sure is going to start with black with me. That’s where it’s going to start. (Short laugh)
Voices in congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: (Full throat) I don’t know anything, and- look it, look it, look it, look it, look it, look it, look it, look it, some of you, you look at it, who do you think you are? Alabaster? Some of you think you are the white king and queen of- of- of Somalia or something? (Stumbles over words) I look at some of you folk out there, you act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. It says charity begins at home. I said, obviously, if we’re to bear one another’s burden, we better start with black and brown and poor people.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: (Moderates) It is amazing to me. You can look around and see, we just don’t know who we are. I love you just the same. No matter if she treated me like a dog, I would not do anything to her, because we’ve got to hold up one another. Didn’t say do unto others as they do unto you. It said do unto others as you have them do unto you. Most of us do onto on- others before they do it to us.
Voices in congregation: That’s right.
Jones: And the worst folks that do it, is us to each other.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: Yes, yes, yes. Peace. (Pause) You see it every day. All up and down the streets, you can see it. Look up and down and see all these churches. This town’s rotten. The road, you can hardly- you- if you’ve got a car, I don’t know how your- your car lasts in these big cities. At least that- out in California, C- the roads are decent. The- your- the roads beat- beat your car to death. Can’t- you’ve no car, no- no decent car, no decent roads, can’t get any decent service, can’t get your garbage picked up when we were here, the last meeting I held in Philadelphia a month ago, I- I know, honey, I know, because I’ve been all over this United States and everybody with me, all my seniors because we take them all, as I said. I know what it is. Every city we went into, you go into the black neighborhoods or the brown neighborhoods, snow clear up to your hip. Dirt, garbage, cans uptown turned upside down, just as filthy as could possible- The moment you got into the – you know – the streets were clean. The ice was off the road. The snow was gone. I’ll get you home, if you’ll set for the truth, honey. I’ll- I’ll even carry you home piggyback. (Pause) I tell you, it makes- it’s depressing about the truth, the truth is something else.
Voices in congregation: Yes it is.
Jones: Folk don’t want the truth anymore. Don’t tell me about wanting the truth, though, folk don’t want the truth, but I still got to preach the truth as long as there’s one person here that want to hear it.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: (Moderates) Well, Mr. Bernard went to four months in jail, but the little man that says my momma’s dying of cancer, and I want her Social Security check now. Said he was threatening. [You] Say (Unintelligible word)- All he did, he said, I’m going to stay here until tomorrow morning. They sentenced him the same week that Mr. Bernard got four months, they sentenced that poor man, that nigger, they sentenced him to nine years in the federal penitentiary. (Cries out) The same week a Mr. Maize (phonetic) in Tallahassee, Florida, was hungry and didn’t have enough to feed his five children and his wife, and he stole four or five loaves of bread (voice drops) and he got three years. (Cries out) Don’t tell me, I say- you say, we’re not to talk about this. Yes, we are, because it said God is no respect of persons, and respect of person is sin.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: (Full throat) So we are to preach about respect of person. We ought to show every discrimination and preach it out and lift it up on the top of the house and let everybody see it.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: (Intense) We’re to cry aloud and we are to spare not. (Moderates) We’re to show people their transgressions and this house- all this house’s sins and its inequities. We cannot possibly get to the truth unless you preach against discrimination, ’cause that’s what respect of person means. Respect a person is discrimination, and the commandment- James said, the worst commandment there was, m- more severe than breaking, thou shall not kill, was where it says is to hold respect of persons. James, the brother of Jesus, said the worst commandment to break (claps hands once) is respect of persons. And yet you see it every day. You don’t have to go to Tuscaloosa, you don’t have to go down in Mississippi, you can see it in Philadelphia every day.
Voices in congregation: That’s right.
Jones: Last night when we went to get some gas on the way, as I drove all night to Washington, every time I’d see three people that were black, I’d see people that were white with the nih- they- it didn’t make any difference how well the black were dressed, they were white, they- they’d go down the streets and mind their business, but every time a group of young blacks or older blacks, the police come up and say whatcha doing? (Pause) I’m talking about respect of persons.
Voices in congregation: That’s right.
Jones: (Voice builds) And it’d be nice, it’d be mighty nice, if some of those police could be found in our neighborhoods, when they’re tearing up our buildings, and when they don’t do anything to protect us against muggers or rapists or arsonists, but no, then we can’t find them there, but let us take a drive over to some restaurant or some filling station in a white neighborhood and there will be five squad cars saying, “What are you doing here?”
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: (Voice moderates) And I think it stinks, ’cause it’s respect of persons. Across the nation we’re seeing it every day, our black boys, our sons and our daughters. I say “boy,” because I wouldn’t say it, other than that I’m a grandfather, but our sons are not only in jail, but they’re having lobotomies done on their brain in nearly every state in the United States, a laser beam being put on their brain. If they protest, if they get too smart, they just cut off a part of their brains so they can’t learn anymore. Experimenting on drugs is into the millions of dollars in the prison system. The prisons are filled with our people.
Man’s voice: Right, right.
Jones: (Quiet then more intense) Yet last year, five hundred and ninety four wealthy white people ripped this country off of income taxes better than the national debt, each of them a quarter million dollars. Not one of them went to jail. Last year another 84 people violated the Sherman antitrust law – that means competitive price-fixing, cheating on prices, monopolies taking over businesses, cheating people, even having them done away with. Do you know how many people went to jail last year for competitive practices, monopoly capitalism, violating the Sherman antitrust law? Do you know how many’ve gone to jail since that bill was even passed since 1890? Not one.
Congregation: (Murmurs)
Jones: (Voice climbs throughout) Mr. Nixon [Former president Richard Nixon] stole half the United States. Killed a woman in Mrs. Hunt [Dorothy Hunt, wife of Watergate burglar E. Howard Hunt] in Washington to keep his sins from finding him out. Brought an airplane down with a whole- brought a whole planeload of black and brown and white people, and the agents of the government stood around and wouldn’t even let the fire people get there till all the evidence had been burned up, because she had papers. Now I know, because I am in high places. I’m in government. Burn that plane, and those people burned alive just in that Chicago airport, and they wanted to be sure the evidence was destroyed. Where’s Mr. Nixon? On The David Frost Show making two million dollars. Where is Mr. Nixon? Writing his memoirs, going to get another three million dollars. Where’s Mr. Nixon? He owns three estates. He’s walking free, and yet if you took a loaf of bread tonight, you’ll be in jail for five years.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: (Declarative) I am not going to take that no more.
Voices in congregation: No more, no more. That’s right.
Jones: And I’m personally glad that we’ve got a a- wild man in Africa.
Voices in congregation: That’s right.
Jones: (Voice moderates) Although I’m not pleased with what they’re trying to do. They’re trying to make us look like apes. Wild man. I’m glad that there’s a wild man at least in Africa, and in order to fulfill the scripture to take care of the household of the faith, I’ve got some land over there with a black president [Guyana Prime Minister Forbes Burnham]. The people got some land over there. It’s wonderful to walk over there, all the lies they tell you that we don’t know how to run our affairs. But it’s wonderful to walk over there, where the police don’t carry any guns. I mean black – six races, Indian, black, white, brown, all living together, and there’s never a racial word heard amongst the people. All living as one. You can look at it back there on the s- on the uh, sign. You better look at some of these people here tonight, ’cause the last time some of you are going to see ’em, ’cause they’re going there, ’cause I’m sending my people there little by little. [You] Say, why are you sending them? ‘Cause they’re not going to round us up like the Japanese. They’re not going to round us up like the Indians. (Calls out) No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: (Voice moderates) [You] Say, how did you do that? Well, I’ll tell you how you can do it. You can do it by quit paying preachers anniversaries and quit building these big church rip-offs. As I started to say, our streets are rottening. You can’t get hospital care. If you go, you’ll wait all day in a general hospital to get a treatment. You could die right there while you’re waiting, as some of you know. And yet up and down this block, you can go up and down Broad Street, and you got fifteen different churches. We are our worstenemies. Fifteen different churches, and often you got fifteen Baptist or fifteen Pentecostal or fifteen holiness churches in the same block, because we got fifteen parasite jacklegs that want to rip us off.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: If the truth hurts, then it just have to hurt you, because it’s still going to be preached.
Voices in congregation: Yes, that’s right, go ahead.
Jones: (Quiet) Why is it, that the best things in our neighborhood is a church? You can’t eat the church pew. You can’t eat the church hymnal. They won’t even let you sleep in a church. You know what I’m talking about.
Voices in congregation: That’s right, think about it.
Jones: And you better not park in that place that says pastor’s parking when that Cadillac drives up.
Voices in congregation: That’s right.
Jones: Come on now, come on now. You better not do that. (Pause) [You] Say, how do you preach this? ‘Cause I live it, that’s how I preach it. I don’t own a car, much less a Cadillac. I live in the church like all the rest of people. I live in less accommodations than the most of my people do. Because as husband, I must be first protecting the fruit. I got used clothes on my back. Suit don’t fit me. Some of them look and say, this su- you- you’re getting bigger, I said no, you just never looked. The suit never did– I never buttoned it before, and that’s why it looks like I have gained, because actually I’ve lost, but I buttoned it tonight because I went to Washington.
Congregation: (Scattered cheers and applause)
Jones: Come on now. Peace.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: Now let us think. If you will stop wasting your money on these great cathedrals that have nothing, form of godliness denying the power thereof, you’re going to have to get the spirit. You see, we got to live with the spirit. There’s enough in there in that Bible to give you the truth, but if you don’t have a prophet, or you don’t become the prophet, you are up blind man’s alley, because the Bible warns you even against itself. [It] Says the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. What is the letter? I don’t suppose most of you need to be told, but some of you need to be told. The letter, the letter, the letter to Romans, the letter to Corinthians, the letter to the Colossians, the letter to Timothy, letter means Bible. Second Corinthians 3:6 says the letter – the Bible – kills. Now if you was next to a killer over there – if one of you setting over there, setting on me, if you were eitting next to a killer – yeah, you ain’t smiled once tonight – if you were setting next to a killer, you’d move. And yet you got a killer in your pocketbook or in your lap, unless you have the prophetic spirit. He said how can you hear without a preacher, how can he preach, lest he be sent. Now there’s one woman there that could be healed if she’ll stay, but I- I cannot do anything, I’ve got to preach tonight. Only had an hour and half service (claps hands once) last night, but I’ve- I have got to do this, I’m leaving Philadelphia, I might not see you for a while, and I’ve got to be sure that I don’t have your blood on my hands when I leave here.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: Peace. (Conversational) You know it’s a- it’s a tragedy that if we don’t get that spirit, that spirit of freedom. You see, God- It’s still there- Jesus talked about it all the time. He said the Bible said, it said an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. He said I say unto you, it’s no longer so. It was written, but he didn’t care what was written. He lived by the New Testament, his own testament. His own testimony. He lived by the living epistle that he was. Read and known of all men. That’s the Bible that you need to be. You need to be your ownBible today. Yeah. I’m just- oh, you say uh, ah no, no, no, no, no, I got to read the King James, I got to know. Yeah, you better read King James. You ought to read who wroteKing James. That’s what you really ought to do.
Congregation: (scattered cheers and applause)
Jones: You better look in here and see who wrote King James. You better get that- you better find that out before you do anything else. ‘Cause it says here, written by King James, 1611 AD. Just a couple hundred years ago. Just three hundred years ago. Now Jesus supposed to have lived two thousand years ago? But this Bible was written three hundred years ago, and I’m telling you for a reason, because it’s very important you get this, ’cause now, across the nation, we’re hearing a lot of Bible scholars like J. Vernon McGee, who’s a racist through and through, he cal- he take you through the Bible Safari. He says a negrah- he’s trying to get around that other word, he’ll get through in another year or so, he’ll get around the other word, negrah were happier when they were slaves. He comes on with that old white southern drawl. You heard him. You heard J. Vernon McGee. He’s on a thousand radio stations. He said they used to sing, he said the darkies sang when they were in slave days. And a little bit of that in Roots too. Some of those houses. You never- You say oh, that was beautiful. Honey, the- every time that man puts something on the TV, you’d better look for the angle.
Voices in congregation: That’s the truth, that’s right.
Jones: Show that- uh, none of us ever lived like that in no slave house, but the moment that young man started out for freedom, he got his arm cut off and a whole lots of trouble. What they were trying to say, don’t try ’cause you’re going to pay a heavy price.
Voices in congregation: That’s right.
Jones: What they were trying to say was the triumph of an American family, ’cause one man found his roots, we’ve all found ours? No, honey, we haven’t found ours. We haven’t got what belongs to us, we don’t even know where our property is.
Voices in congregation: That’s right.
Jones: We haven’t even gotten our back wages, much less our roots in Africa. We haven’t even got our back wages yet.
Congregation: (Cheers and applause)
Jones: Peace. And some folk, some folk think, some folk think that just because Roots was written, that it’s now all made. But 60 percent of our people are about to lose their houses, and by eight- nineteen, 1982, the government projection was today, 90 percent of everybody will have to find another way of making a living, ’cause of the age of automation and the industrial period is over, the resources have been used up here, so they’re going to go and steal the resources off a few colonial nations they still got. ‘Cause they’ve used up the oil out of this country, and they burned away the coal, and strip-mined away every bit of minerals, so 90 percent of your- of the jobs are going to be gone. And you know what that means? We were always the last hired, and we’re the first fired. And then when the fight comes for the food, the little bit of food left, and the water left, you’re going to know that America is not heaven, and you might think it’s hell, because there’ll be killing and warfare and shedding of blood like you’ve never seen in all your life. [You] Say, oh, it’s better. You know better than that. You know better than that. [You] Say, our neighborhoods are getting better. Honey, they’re getting more segregated by the day. You can walk around, you know, they got us all rounded up. Our public housing – ’cause I’m a housing commissioner – they built the housing so they can block you. All they need to do is put two guards at one door, and they got a whole- they got a- they have a- two hundred families locked in there.
Congregation: (Murmurs)
Jones: Hmm? Don’t tell me and say it’s getting better. Yeah, one man told the truth about it. They put Governor [Otto] Kerner, Governor Kerner of Illinois, to tell the truth about really what was happening, and he said we’re fastly headed for two countries in this- two societies in this nation, separate and unequal. One black and one white. Roy Wilkins said the same thing when he resigned from the N-uh, double-ACP. Said they’re going to kill us, said there going to be a genocide. They always tell us when they resign. What happened to Governor Kerner? They put him in jail. They didn’t want that white man to tell that truth. No governor ever goes to jail, unless he gets on the wrong side of the ruling class. He died just a few weeks go in the jail, of cancer, never even got to go home to see his wife. The head of thecivil rights commission, ’cause he wrote the Kerner report, and told what this country’s really headed for. You see the neighborhoods. You wen- you went down here, this man down the street. I ain’t going to get into no- and I’m not going to meddle tonight. But there’s a church down the street. I’m not going to talk about it. Used to see a lot of white folk in that st- that church. The only one you see there now is the man taking the money.
Voices in congregation: Right, true.
Jones: Oh, you see a few, you see a few but- (Chuckles.)
Congregation: (Applause)
Jones: (Over applause) I’ll tell it, I’ll tell it. (Voice builds) I’m go- I’m going to have to tell it. When I came to hold a meeting – ’cause he liked my healing power, he liked the way Christ had blessed me with the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit, he wanted me to come down – and when he found out that I was black and had a black son, (Voice drops) he cancelled my meeting. (Pause) Hmm. Hmm. I’m telling you the truth, whether you want to hear it or not.
Voices in congregation: Right, that’s right.
Jones: And his name sounds like mine.
Voices in congregation: Right, yeah.
Congregation: (Applause)
Jones: Peace. And I know some of you go there, and I didn’t want to say it, but I’ll have to say it anyhow. You got to know the truth, ’cause the truth will set you free.
Voices in congregation: That’s right, right.
Jones: These are dangerous days and the church must take care of the household of the faith. [You] Say, well now, you’ve hit my Bible. Yes, I’ve hit your Bible, ’cause it says you are not saved by Bibles, you are saved by the foolishness of preachers-
End of tape
Tape originally posted May 2004