What we choose to remember and who we choose to forget still defines us today.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why the infamous story about Peoples Temple isn\u2019t simply a shocking event that happened in the past, it\u2019s a mirror to our now, and if not handled with accuracy and care, it could well become a mirror into our future.<\/p>\n
Peoples Temple \u2013 the movement and community \u2013 was rooted in the Bay Area and Southern California, where civil rights for Black and other historically-minoritized people, the LGBTQIA community, and women were at the forefront of a cultural awakening. Set in a complex period in American history, enmeshed in the contradictions of a post\u2013Jim Crow America, the stories of Peoples Temple and the subsequent events at Jonestown have too often been reduced to the circumstances of their deaths, seemingly removing the people\u2019s lives from the narrative.<\/p>\n
The legacy of Peoples Temple has long been out of its own hands. As the decades pass, so do the memories of its people, their stories confined to archives, scattered recollections, and footnotes on websites like the Jonestown Institute. Rarely are they placed at the forefront of the mainstream.<\/p>\n
The massive scale of ostensible \u201cPeoples Temple\u201d projects that are churned out every few years, especially during the years of significant anniversaries of 1978, remains starkly similar in their approach: the same players are discussed, the congregation is reduced to a statistic \u2013 \u201cmostly women and children\u201d \u2013 and\u00a0Jim Jones remains at the center of the story.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because the gatekeepers of who holds the power to create, and who opens the doors for others to be seen, have long been the same. As Black and Brown women working in film and TV, we know intimately how difficult it is to have our stories platformed and to retain ownership of them once, or even if, they see the light of day.<\/p>\n
We began our journey into Peoples Temple almost eight years ago with a desire to reclaim the majority of its voices that were lost amongst their own carnage: the Black voices, and more specifically, the Black female voices whose labor, leadership, and love were the heartbeat of the community\u2019s best work, and integral at every turn in its survival, structure, and influence within society at large.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why we have dedicated to making sure that those who lost the most, gave the most, and received so little in return, tell their own stories, their way. After so many no\u2019s, at some point, we had to stop asking \u2013 for permission, for understanding, for ownership, for validation that the story is worth telling \u2013 and to start insisting that it was never someone else\u2019s to give you. It was yours to say all along.<\/p>\n
The deeper we\u2019ve gone into this project, the clearer it\u2019s become how cyclical<\/em> history can be. The same social fractures, the same manipulations of faith and belonging, the same inequalities that shaped Peoples Temple are still alive in our lives, society and politics today. The irony of the quote that hung above Jim Jones\u2019 chair in the Jonestown pavilion \u2013 \u201cThose who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it\u201d \u2013 has not been lost on us. The accuracy of history with its three-dimensional nuance isn\u2019t just about the past. It\u2019s about recognizing ourselves within it and refusing to let past erasures continue to determine the future.<\/p>\n Yes, it\u2019s harder this way. It\u2019s more uncertain, more costly, and more vulnerable. It\u2019s also true, many TV and film sales executives care more about sensationalism than the people \u2013 it\u2019s more uncertain, more costly, more vulnerable \u2013 but so is every<\/em> act of reclamation. The investment isn\u2019t just financial. It\u2019s historical. Because when the victors write history, we have to ourselves must ask: who are they? The ones with power and money, or the ones with the stories that connect us<\/em>? We\u2019ve decided to stake everything on the belief that it\u2019s those with the story who truly win.<\/p>\n Our upcoming work aims to return the narrative to those who lived it, survived it, and whose experiences make the story complete. Because the people of Peoples Temple are not the backdrop, they are the<\/em> story. Now it\u2019s time they be heard.<\/p>\n [<\/em>Mariam Kanso<\/em><\/strong> (mariam.kanso@gmail.com<\/a>) and Sarah Springer<\/strong> (sarah.springer@wearetissue.com<\/a>) are documentarians who live on the West Coast.]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What we choose to remember and who we choose to forget still defines us today. That\u2019s why the infamous story about Peoples Temple isn\u2019t simply a shocking event that happened in the past, it\u2019s a mirror to our now, and if not handled with accuracy and care, it could well become a mirror into our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":132189,"menu_order":44,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-132410","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/132410","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=132410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/132410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132411,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/132410\/revisions\/132411"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/132189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=132410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}