{"id":123138,"date":"2023-06-17T15:21:36","date_gmt":"2023-06-17T22:21:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=123138"},"modified":"2023-06-18T11:46:43","modified_gmt":"2023-06-18T18:46:43","slug":"peoples-temple-members-as-niggers","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=123138","title":{"rendered":"Peoples Temple Members as \u201cNiggers\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jim Jones was a white man<\/a>, but he led a congregation that was overwhelmingly black, especially during the mid-1970s when the Temple claimed most of its membership from Los Angeles and San Francisco. Part of his attraction for black audiences was that he would use language with which they were all-too familiar from their everyday lives but that would not sit well in white churches \u2013 or even in most black churches. That included the taking racial epithets \u2013 especially the word \u201cnigger\u201d \u2013 and turning them on their heads, turning them into badges of honor.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Jones went so far as to describe himself and everyone who followed him \u2013 the minority of whites, the handfuls of Latins and Asians \u2013 as \u201cniggers.\u201d It was how they distinguished themselves from those who have power and make the rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, yes, you\u2019re a nigger,\u201d he said in an\u00a0address<\/a>\u00a0delivered in Philadelphia in 1973.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m a nigger.\u2026 I don\u2019t care if you\u2019re an Italian nigger, or you\u2019re Jewish or an Indian, the only people that\u2019re getting anything in this country are the people that got the money, baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

Upwards of 25 recorded sermons<\/a> bear this out, ranging from Q 1057-5<\/a> from Los Angeles and Q 1054-2<\/a> in Redwood Valley in 1972, to Q 969<\/a> in San Francisco in 1976, and Q 987<\/a> back in Philadelphia in early 1977.<\/p>\n

This is not to say that Jones didn\u2019t understand the racism behind the word. He just knew how to convert the pain that it caused into a source of pride. Consider what he said about his adopted black son, Jim Jones, Jr., during a sermon from late 1974<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They used to send him home crying when they\u2019d spit on him or something or call that word \u201cnigger.\u201d He said that\u00a0word hurt<\/em>. And so I turned that word around in my home, and I made it the proudest word for the chosen people. I said, yes we\u2019re niggers and we\u2019re proud. \u2026 The last time little Jim was called \u201cnigger,\u201d he said, sticks and stones may break my bones, but you\u2019re certainly not going to hurt me with\u00a0that<\/em>\u00a0word, because that\u2019s the\u00a0best<\/em>\u00a0word in the world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was not the only reason he used the word, though. Depending upon his mood \u2013 or just as likely, his perception of how an address was being received at the moment \u2013 he would call it out to\u00a0shock his congregants out of their apathy. Judging from the applause and cheers that followed, the tactic worked.<\/p>\n

<\/a>As with other pieces of Temple history, though, the term turned dark when it was used in Jonestown. There \u2013 with Jones\u2019 blessing \u2013 it reverted to a stereotype, but it was one the community used as a weapon to be used in resisting their enemies. Any attacks upon them \u2013 whether it was countering Guyanese authorities trying to serve papers<\/a> against them, protesting an adverse decision by the government on licensing their doctor<\/a> or their school<\/a>, or an actual physical assault \u2013 should be met with the response of \u201ccrazy niggers.\u201d The residents answered in kind. \u201cI would take my cutlass and go to the front lines and fight,\u201d Erris Morrison wrote in answer to the question of what they would do on the final White Night<\/a>. \u201cif they catch me I would make them kill me, by fighting, and that means being a crazy nigger.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jim Jones was a white man, but he led a congregation that was overwhelmingly black, especially during the mid-1970s when the Temple claimed most of its membership from Los Angeles and San Francisco. Part of his attraction for black audiences was that he would use language with which they were all-too familiar from their everyday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"parent":60520,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-123138","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/123138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=123138"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/123138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123222,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/123138\/revisions\/123222"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/60520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=123138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}