Jim Jones and His Peoples Temple:
Dual Racial Identities, Dual Results

As a third-year history major at UC Berkeley this past year, I took a semester-long seminar entitled “‘Race’ and Racism in the United States in Comparative Perspective.” When my professor, Dr. Mark Brilliant, asked us to do in-depth primary source research on the topic of our choice, I knew that I wanted to delve into a local issue. Since I am especially interested in contemporary San Francisco history, I began looking into Jim Jones’ San Francisco-based Peoples Temple. Before long, I uncovered a wealth of intriguing sources, especially at San Francisco’s California Historical Society archive, which provided the basis for my research. While I was at first overwhelmed by the vast amount of Peoples Temple information at the Historical Society, as well as all of the topics other scholars had previously researched, my own Jim Jones story began to unfold. Initially, I had viewed Peoples Temple as a cult-like anomaly that happened to be based in San Francisco, but soon I began to see the that the Temple had a complex and intertwined racial, political, and religious history.

Fascinated by my research and the documents I studied, I know there is still a lot I can discover about Peoples Temple as an institution with a dual racial and political identity. Therefore, I will likely expand my Peoples Temple research into my senior thesis during Spring 2009.

You can reach me at bagee@berkeley.edu.

 “I know that I’m black,” Jim Jones declared in 1973.  He later explained:  “We need black identity.”[1]  With messages like these, Jones, a white pastor, along with an estimated two-thirds white leadership,[2] cultivated an “80 to 90 percent black” congregation at his San Francisco Peoples Temple.[3] The Temple’s infamous downfall came on November 18, 1978, when amid allegations of church abuse and corruption,[4] around 900 of Reverend Jim Jones’ followers committed suicide at the church’s settlement, “Jonestown,” in Guyana.  By then the Temple had traveled great distances.  Jones founded the church in the 1950s in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Peoples Temple relocated to Redwood Valley, California, in the 1960s, promoted its message statewide, and officially settled into San Francisco’s Fillmore District in 1976.[5] Associated with the Protestant denomination, the Disciples of Christ (Christian) Church, “Jim Jones” and “Peoples Temple” were synonymous, as Jones crafted the Temple’s ideologies, practices, and affiliations.  The Temple enjoyed notoriety and political clout as a “human service ministry,” comprised of people “from all racial, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds.”[6] But while Peoples Temple outwardly portrayed itself and gained support as an interracial institution within San Francisco’s mainstream political sphere, Jones, at the same time, embedded the Temple in an image of “blackness.” Due to its subsequent appearance as a Black Church and prominence within San Francisco’s African American community, Jones ultimately integrated himself into the city’s black political sphere.

Scholars have mostly studied Peoples Temple in terms of who joined Jones’ cause and why, in addition to what type of institution the Temple was.  E. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya propose that most African American members were “impoverished and déclassé,”[7] but Mary R. Sawyer argues that Temple blacks ranged in economic backgrounds, some previously religious (and possibly even retaining those affiliations), and blacks joined with family or as individuals.[8] Arguments also vary regarding why black members joined.  Sawyer notes the inadequacy of other local churches,[9] Tanya Hollis explains Peoples Temple’s attempt to offer economic solutions,[10] and more broadly, some scholars believe the Temple was seen as an alternative to urban racism.[11] In addition, Rebecca Moore calls Peoples Temple a “black religious group,”[12] whereas Lincoln and Mayima say Jones led a political and religious “cult.”[13] This paper, however, will delve into how Jones’ Peoples Temple separately portrayed itself both as an interracial and as a black institution, and specifically the political results of this duality.

Prior to coming to San Francisco, Peoples Temple embedded itself in a mixed-race public image through rhetoric and political activism.  Jones preached an integrationist vision in Indianapolis, aligning his congregation with the civil rights movement.  A reporter explained that Jones grew up in a “lily-white town” and witnessed discrimination in college, which led him to open his church as a “fully interracial” movement focused on “humanitarian work.”[14] Jones described his Indiana parishioners:  “About a fifth of the church’s 300 members are Negro.”[15]  He used his own race to shape the Indiana church’s mixed-race atmosphere, portraying his childhood family as interracial,[16] noting his part-Cherokee[17] heritage, and adopting a “rainbow family.”[18] Integration was a “question of [his] son’s future”[19] in 1961, suggesting Jones’ personal stake in the black movement. Early commitment to desegregation led him to move west to escape Indiana’s racist atmosphere.[20] In Redwood Valley, he described his mixed-race church as being “about seven per cent blacks, one per cent Indians, and the remainder Caucasians.”[21]

After settling in the Bay Area in 1976 and establishing a nearly 90 percent black base, Jones’ Temple used rhetoric and imagery to retain its civil rights-reminiscent, mixed-race title.  Jones continued boasting about his “adopted seven children of all races.”[22] The business card of the Temple’s Associate Minister formally read: “A Multi-Racial Inter-Faith Human Service Ministry,”[23] and public ephemera regularly called the Temple an “interracial religious movement.”[24] The Peoples Forum, the Temple’s monthly newspaper and main source of promotion and communication, pictured three faces of different races on its header.[25]

Politically, Peoples Temple displayed its interracial ideology through activism.  Jones publicized Peoples Temple’s “cooperative, non-violent, true apostolic socialism” creed as being “an alternative to totalitarian fascism or communism,”[26] ultimately aiming to create a “decent life for all people” and dispelling “racial divisions and economic injustice.”[27]  In practice, Peoples Temple financially supported and publicly lauded many diverse organizations, including a multi-cultural battered woman’s shelter, La Casa de Las Madres,[28] and the ACLU Foundation.[29]  The Temple fought for minority rights, like in 1977, when 900 Peoples Temple parishioners staged a protest against tenant evictions, mostly of elderly Chinese and Filipino Americans,[30] at San Francisco’s International Hotel.[31]  The Temple’s interracial activism helped produce multi-ethnic affiliations, such as with Native American activist Dennis Banks[32] and the local Jewish community.[33]

The Temple’s mixed-race humanitarian support, in turn, fostered Jones’ connections to and involvement in San Francisco’s political establishment.  Local and national politicians became enamored by Jones and his ministry’s human service, along with his ability to make congregants do what reporter John Jacobs called “nuts and bolts work” like “doorbell ringing, and getting out the vote” in elections.[34]  A San Francisco Chronicle article referenced Rosalynn Carter, Vice President Walter Mondale, and Senator Mike Gravel as being among Jones’ major political backers.[35]  In 1976, San Francisco Mayor George Moscone said Jones’ “spiritual energy and civic commitment are virtually boundless.”[36]  Moscone served as Jones’ pathway to direct political clout, appointing Jones to the San Francisco Housing Commission in 1976.  Jones utilized this position to further a public interracial image, citing that it was his job to meet the needs of thousands of residents “of all racial and ethnic backgrounds unable to afford housing.”[37]

But as Jones cultivated the Temple’s official outward ideology as a mixed-race human service ministry, Reverend J. Alfred Smith later explained how Jones had both white authority, “and the rhythm and the cadence of the preaching style of black.”[38]  Smith, Jones’ counterpart and black pastor of Oakland’s Allen Baptist Church, revealed how inside Peoples Temple, Jones attempted to create a distinctly African American persona for himself.  Most significantly, Jones referenced his own blackness in sermons, like in 1973: “You better say that black-haired nigger Jim believes in what he’s doing.”[39]  Smith described how Jones’ sermon rhetoric “used the same metaphorical, theological language and vocabulary” Smith and other black preachers employed, including participatory “call and response” and “oral tradition.”[40]  Smith explained, “If you closed your eyes and listened to him preach, you would swear you were listening to a black man.”[41]  In 1953, W. E. B. Du Bois noted the traditional Black Church focus on “the Preacher,”[42] and Jones represented the archetypal, dominant Pentecostal Black Church pastor, acting as a traditional “charismatic” leader and speaking in tongues in sermons.[43]  Jones also asserted his paternalism to his congregants, like in 1973:  “Father will take you in,”[44] likely shaped after Father Divine, the African American religious leader of a mid-1950s “interracial movement.”[45]  Jones made even grander Pentecostal “Prophet” and “messenger of God”[46] claims, and referenced his own “Godliness,” including fervently in 1974:  “when I say Goddamnit it, I guess I can damn it, because I’m God.”[47]

While presenting himself as black, Jones also sought to give his congregation an all-black identity.  He claimed that his parishioners were African American: “you look white, but honey, you’re a nigger like Father Jim.”[48]   Peoples Temple services also followed customary Black Church practices.  Milmon F. Harrison explains how services modeled “emotionally expressive Pentecostal tradition” rooted in “traditional black worship styles.”[49]  Peoples Temple adhered to traditional emphasis on “the Music, and the Frenzy” that Du Bois cited in black churches;[50] key worship elements included organ music, along with “shouts, cheering, or the clapping of hands.”[51]  Temple visitors described services having “African-style dance” and “inspirational songs” often “associated with the civil rights movement,” such as “We Shall Overcome.”[52] 

Inherent to the Temple’s promotion of blackness within the congregation was a dual effort to reject mainstream, white society, while also instilling fear amongst blacks.  A 1976 Peoples Forum article illustrated how American culture associated ” ‘white’ with goodness and ‘black’ with evil.”[53]  In sermons, Jones also discussed society’s predisposition to whiteness:  “You’re black and kill a white person, you’ve had trouble . If you’re black and kill a black, they may not even pick you up.”[54]  Countering this conventional racism, Jones told his congregants:  “Black is a disposition.  To act against evil.  To do good.”[55]  At the same time, Temple literature and sermons included millennialist, apocalyptic fear of racial attack, especially against African Americans.  A 1976 Peoples Forum article warned that a genetic or chemical weapon could destroy ethnic groups, and the accompanying image showed a black face encircled by a gun target,[56] designed to cultivate panic specifically amongst black readership. 

Jones’ congregation also functioned as a black institution in its ministry with its healing and communalism.  Temple stationary depicted the Temple as a charitable sanctuary by including biblical passage Matthew 25:35-40:  “For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: . I was a stranger, and ye took me in.”[57]  This verse, along with Jones’ “spiritual healing services,”[58] aligned Peoples Temple with the traditional Black Church and therapeutic Pentecostalism.[59]  In addition, Du Bois explained how the Black Church was the “social centre of Negro life,” and a “communistic institution.”[60]  Peoples Temple attempted to offer such support:  “if you want safety, if you want strength, if you want refuge. come on over.”[61]  A Peoples Forum explained that parishioners were not just “members,” but that the church influenced daily life, acting as an “extended family.”[62]  Peoples Temple’s communalism also echoed the civil rights movement, since according to Michael Battle, the 1950s and ’60s Black Church fostered “community that could sustain basic opportunities” for oppressed blacks,.[63]  In addition, the Temple expanded on traditional Black Church community support, using strategies similar to the 1960s Black Panther Party (BPP).  The BPP’s “survival programs,” like food and medical help,[64] were akin to the Temple’s dormitories, “infirmary, child care center, carpentry shop, printing press, and kitchens.”[65]

Peoples Temple also reflected blackness, and specifically the Black Church, by combining religiosity with its political commitment.  Originally, “slave theology gave rise to Black activism,”[66] translating to an overall theme of “civic responsibilit[y]” in the Black Church.[67]  Therefore, Peoples Temple’s self-perceived role as an “active, socially-committed force” representing a “resource for community change”[68] displays the Temple’s embodiment of the

Black Church’s historic role as a benevolent institution.  Peoples Forum articles often positively singled out black parishioner involvement in political activism, noting that the “most faithful demonstrators were black” in a free press rally.[69]  In addition, the Temple’s “apostolic socialist” rallying cry, used to further the Temple’s interracial public image, also translated into a message that resonated in local black politics.  Peoples Temple harnessed African American politics using a similar ideology to previous black movements, including Martin Luther King, Jr.’s rejection of “capitalist exploitation” and support of “nonviolence,”[70] and the BPP’s focus on politicizing urban blacks.[71] 

Jones’ cultivation of an institution that self-identified and functioned as a Black Church resulted in the Temple’s ability to integrate into the San Francisco African American community. Critical to the Temple’s “blackness” amongst blacks was its Sun Reporter relationship.  Sawyer explains how the Sun Reporter was the “largest black newspaper in the Bay Area,” and it ran highly supportive Peoples Temple articles.[72]  The paper often highlighted the Temple’s religious impact, such as when it proclaimed in 1973 that Jones’ visit to San Francisco proved “The Power of God is mighty in our midst.”[73]  Carlton B. Goodlett, the Sun Reporter’s publisher and Temple medical liaison, along with Thomas Fleming, the paper’s editor,[74] wrote most of the articles praising the Temple.  In 1971, Goodlett bolstered his relationship with Jones, presenting the preacher the Sun Reporter “Special Merit Award.”[75]  The paper’s “Church Directory” listed “Peoples Temple Christian Church” and Jones’ photo amidst dozens of pictures of San Francisco black pastors.[76]  In addition, the paper often pictured and recounted stories of black congregants, like a 1975 article about Jones restoring the sight of a blind, 108-year-old black woman.[77]

 Ultimately, Jones manipulated his leverage from the Temple’s persona as a black religious and activism-oriented institution to penetrate black urban politics.  Jones developed strong relationships with Bay Area black religious leaders, like Reverend J. Alfred Smith.  In retrospect, Smith explained:  “The rapport I felt with my black brethren in the faith, I suddenly felt for a white man.”[78]  Jones also had especially close ties with Cecil Williams, the black reverend of the popular Glide Memorial Methodist Church.[79]  These powerful bonds in the black religious community aided in legitimizing Jones as an African American leader, and helped expand his black alliances to a number of key black political players who supported the Temple’s activism.  Jones had an affiliation with BPP leader Huey Newton,[80] along with socialist scholar and activist Angela Davis.[81]  African American political organizations, including the San Francisco Black Teachers Caucus and the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists,[82] openly endorsed the Temple.  Black San Francisco Assemblyman Willie Brown ardently supported Jones, and this relationship enabled Jones to enter official citywide black politics.  Brown and civil rights activist Jesse Jackson were reluctant to renounce ties with Jones after the Jonestown tragedy,[83] underscoring their strong affiliations.

Jones not only had black political ties, but he even saw himself as an African American activist, calling himself “the best darn freedom-fighter that I know.”[84]  Jones integrated himself into black politics, elbowing “his way onto the NAACP board, partly by having Temple members enroll in the organization and vote for him.”[85]  In a letter to Jones, Brown applauded the minister’s effort to racially unite Peoples Temple and the radical nationalist group Nation of Islam (NOI) in a “long awaited gathering of the folk.”[86]  Brown’s letter referenced what the Peoples Forum called a “close relationship” between the NOI and Peoples Temple in the late 1970s,[87] and Temple member Harriet Tropp believed Jones was responsible for stopping the Muslims from “preaching of hatred” and encouraging their involvement in the political process.[88] 

While the white pastor Jim Jones successfully entered some areas of San Francisco’s black religious and political worlds, his racial crossover had limits, signaled by resistance in the black religious community itself.  Jones likely attracted African American congregants through his black activism and even appealed for exclusive commitment to Peoples Temple:  “Don’t go back to those lying churches.”[89]  Therefore, some politically powerful black ministers, like Hannibal Williams and Amos Brown, attacked Jones for his “syphoning [siphoning] off” members of their churches.  They barred Jones from the “Black Leadership Forum” in 1976, requiring members to be of “African descent,” clearly attempting to devalue the black political image Jones had successfully crafted through his church.[90] 

However, this isolated attempt at rejecting Jones’ blackness within African American city politics did not undermine Jones’ dual political strategy in San Francisco during the 1970s.  While outwardly appealing to the greater community through an interracial, activism-oriented church, Jones purposely cultivated a different image amongst his congregants and San Francisco blacks, first as a Black Church leader and ultimately as an African American politician.  In doing so, Jones demonstrated that despite his whiteness, his adherence to institutional African American ideals and his subsequent racial immersion allowed him and his Peoples Temple to be seen as racially black.  Jones’ role as a white pastor of what resembled a Black Church illuminates that in San Francisco during the 1970s, one could cross racial lines in order to enter into the realm of urban racial politics.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Secondary Sources