{"id":29255,"date":"2013-07-25T16:49:59","date_gmt":"2013-07-25T16:49:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alternativejonestown.com\/?page_id=29255"},"modified":"2026-03-04T16:51:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T00:51:37","slug":"black","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=29255","title":{"rendered":"Housing God In Life And Death: Architecture and the final resting place in two radical movements"},"content":{"rendered":"

(E. Black’s complete collection of writings for <\/i>the jonestown report may be found here<\/a>.)<\/i><\/p>\n

In previous papers, we have explored some similarities and differences in the religious, philosophical and behavioral manifestations of the movements of Father Divine\u2019s Peace Mission and Jim Jones\u2019 Peoples Temple. This article[1] <\/sup><\/a><\/span> considers a seemingly more mundane issue \u2013 the physical facilities of the movements \u2013 to learn how Father Divine\u2019s group influenced Jones\u2019, and how they can inform us of their central messages. What role, if any, did the experience of the earlier movement \u2013 whose latter year overlapped the Temple\u2019s beginnings \u2013 have on the decisions that Jim Jones and his church made in terms of how it functioned, how it housed itself, and then \u2028ultimately and collectively how it left \u201cthis world\u201d? These and other questions \u2028are explored below.[2] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

GOD is in a House, Not Up in the Sky<\/strong>[3] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Both the radical, utopian movements envisioned, created and manifested by both George Baker Jr (Father Divine) and James W. Jones (Father Jim Jones) expressed themselves in the language of religion and specifically the Christian church. The familiar themes of \u201cGod\u201d \u201cheaven\u201d and \u201csalvation,\u201d so well known to them and their targeted audience were used as a language to transfer what is usually taken in traditional Christianity as hopes both for the \u201chereafter\u201d into hopes and for the \u201chere and (right) now.\u201d Both taught that God was not \u201cin the sky\u201d but was embodied in each and every individual. Yet most, if not all, off the followers of these two men were too blind to see this reality or \u2013 as they would say – \u201dthe mystery.\u201d[4] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Both men held themselves out to be \u2013 and were accepted by those who saw them as \u2013 embodiments of what most know as God. In doing so both sought to bring others into the immediate realization of universal brotherhood, health, peace of mind and body and a lived experience of utopia, or heaven, right now, that they represented. As such, their movements, teachings and even the physical structures of their facilities \u2013 rented, purchased or built \u2013 were to be seen as mere utilitarian facilitators of this process of mental realization.<\/p>\n

Thus as opposed to the (false) \u201csky god\u201d of the traditional versions or churches, the \u201cGod\u201d of both the Peace Mission and Peoples Temple was actually the people in it who recognized (the true) \u201cGod\u201d as embodied in and reflected by their respective leader, teacher, pastor and spiritual \u201cFather.\u201d This theoretical realization was reflected in the actual practice of both movements.<\/p>\n

What became known as The \u2028Peace Mission movement got its start \u2013 and never really lost its core \u2013 as a\u2028 house church or an extended family based association. An association united in \u2028a shared belief in the charismatic leader and whose followers thus formed a\u2028collective of believers. Although the movement had began quit non traditionally,\u2028eventually outside and inside pressures forced Father Divine to\u2028 institutionalize the latter manifestation of his movement into what appeared on\u2028 paper as traditional churches.[5] <\/sup><\/a><\/span> Conversely Jim Jones\u2019 initial ministry started off within the traditional church model, but gradually evolved, through his conscious guidance, into the collective and extended family model similar to what was in fact the Peace Mission reality.[6] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Thus in both the Peace Mission and Peoples Temple, the true House of God was ultimately the collective as organized and headed by the \u201cGod in a body\u201d Leader. Yet both movements used a variety of rented, purchased and \u2013 in the case of Peoples Temple \u2013 built, physical manmade structures to house this reality.<\/p>\n

Housing GOD: The Peace Mission Example<\/strong><\/p>\n

The origins of the Peace Mission Movement are in the itinerate ministry of a mysterious individual named Samuel Morris who taught in an eclectic way at the turn of the 20th century in Baltimore, Maryland.[7] <\/sup><\/a><\/span> Using the name Father Jehovia (i.e. Father Jehovah or God) he preached and taught about the utopia of the here-and-now that resulted when one saw, and of course accepted the \u201cmystery\u201d of the reality of \u201cGod\u201d in every person. The young George Baker Jr. (and future Father Divine) was a follower of this leader.[8] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Early on, the small extended family\/commune and school of Father Jehovia, gathered, worshipped, dined, and lived together in a small row house on Fairview Street in the crowded black working class area of Baltimore. Eschewing the need for a separate and designated church building of any type, they as a body represented the church. When Baker began his own separate itinerate ministry, he, like Father Jehovia before him, went on a missionary tour and taught wherever he was able to lift his voice and preach, be it in response to an invitation to a worship service in a church, during a social gathering, at someone\u2019s home or in the streets. It was \u201cthe message\u201d and the \u201cmessenger,\u201d not a \u201cbuilding\u201d that was emphasized.<\/p>\n

Eventually Baker assembled a core of followers while organizing in the small towns of southern and central Georgia, and married a woman several decades his senior from this group. After several run-ins with both the black church and the state over the radical nature of what he was positing, Baker and his small band of followers moved north into a series of dilapidated and cramped apartments in early 20th century inner-city New York. Eventually, the savings realized by communal lifestyle and the central control of the monies by the Divines gave Mrs. Penniniah Divine the ability to purchase a house with multiple bedrooms in the all-white suburb of Sayville. All of these residences, up to and including Sayville, doubled as communal living centers for Father Divine\u2019s ministry and organization.<\/p>\n

Baker\u2019s use of his physical home as a church \u2013 with loud and boisterous services characterized by ecstatic and emotional singing and testimonials of some of the racially-integrated members to the healing power of the leader \u2013 created a problem for his white middle class neighbors. Their complaints and calls to the police led to a confrontation between his organization \u2013 by then in 1930 officially known as the Peace Mission of Father Divine \u2013 and the local New York government. This confrontation sparked a 10-year period of growth and expansion that was, in retrospect, the pinnacle of the Peace Mission movement.[9] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

It is both instructive and indicative of the nature of the Peace Mission\u2019s concept and sense of mission that, instead of building or purchasing churches to house a false \u201csky god,\u201d Father Divine focused on challenging and confronting racially-restrictive housing covenants and integrating hotels and other residences that he rented or purchased to house his growing numbers of followers. Another Peace Mission focus was the creation of huge and expansive rural settlements in upstate New York. These settlements served Father Divine\u2019s political and social justice agenda as well. He purposely chose lands to rent or buy that were adjacent to properties owned or leased by the all-white business, banking and political elites of the time. Called \u201cthe Promised Land,\u201d these rural settlements were designed as examples of his teaching of a racially-integrated utopia in the here and now.<\/p>\n

Communalism, interracialism and gender separation was emphasized and promoted in all Peace Mission properties, both urban and rural. Separate apartments or rooms were always provided and set aside for Mother and Father Divine in designated facilities within or in immediate close proximity to the rest of the communal living membership. Members who worked on jobs outside of the Peace Mission properties were expected to live Father\u2019s teachings at all times. The more affluent or able Divinites who lived, worked and ate in their individual homes as they did before they joined the movement, were encouraged to \u201cgive Father their all,\u201d to sell or donate what they had and join the collective in a Peace Mission-owned and operated property, whether in a city or in the rural \u201cPromised Land.\u201d[10] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

This was the movement at is height. Followers of Father Divine marched in the streets of Harlem side-by-side with communist and anti-war protesters calling for peace, social justice and reparations for black people.<\/p>\n

The radical interracialist and pro-communal ethic continued even into the Peace Mission\u2019s years of decline starting with the 1940\u2032s. A number of problems arose at this time, including internal pressures from vengeful apostates who used newspapers owned by virulent anti-Divinite individuals to spread bad publicity. There were also crusades against the movement by both the established Black Church as well as by rival black new religionists. During the Cold War following World War II, the Peace Mission abandoned its base in New York City, eventually cutting back all across New York state itself. The movement relocated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, forced to adopt the codified and institutionalized structure of a collection of established churches in order to survive.[11] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

God\u2019s Retirement Home<\/strong><\/p>\n

The immediate effect of this post war transition on the Movement became long term. The group stopped its spontaneity, slowed its growth, and turned increasingly, however incrementally, inward and away from the public sphere. Divine now emphasized his titles \u201creverend\u201d and \u201cbishop,\u201d and his meetings, while still held in the auditoriums and ballrooms of the buildings and converted hotels of his movement as before, now began to be called \u201ccircle\u201d and \u201cpalace\u201d mission \u201cchurches.\u201d Ultimately one of his white multi millionaire followers bought and gave to him what was to become both his signature and legacy property: the Woodmount Estate on Philadelphia\u2019s mainline.[12] <\/sup><\/a><\/span> It would be here, in a hilltop palace on 73 acres amidst choice rural woodland, that the aging and declining God of the Peace Mission, born to ex-slaves in a rural Maryland shack almost 100 years before, would meet death \u2013 or as his followers say, he \u201claid his body down\u201d- on September 10th 1965.[13] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

God\u2019s Crypt<\/strong>[14] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Father Divine\u2019s body lay in private hands until his widow and followers built what they saw as a fitting receptacle to contain the shed \u201cbody of God.\u201d Two years and $300,000 later, what they came up with was \u2013 in the words of one researcher \u2013 a small hexagonal structure with large gilded doors topped with a glass pyramid that contains within the red marble crypt the body of Father Divine.<\/p>\n

Potter\u2019s Fields, Forgotten Memories<\/strong><\/p>\n

In stark contrast the vast majority of the followers of the Peace Mission Movement, those who lived and grew old after living and working communally in its hotels and dormitories and on its farms, passed from life to death, unnoticed, unheralded and without ceremony, buried and forgotten in potter\u2019s fields. Most of them, having previously cut all ties with their non-Movement biological families when they first joined the Peace Mission long before, had no known relatives to inform of their deaths. Thus, near Peace Missions in urban areas, corpses of John and Jane Does appeared periodically on the doorsteps of local hospitals, funeral homes and mortuaries. Peace Mission members, whose relatives had either tracked them down to a Peace Mission communal residence or keep up correspondence with them despite being asked repeatedly not to, were sometimes informed by a curt,\u2028 short notice of their loved ones death. But this was not often the case.[15] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The Peace Mission\u2019s Closing Campaign<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Peace Mission had started as an offshoot of a radical utopian commune centered on an idea and the deification of the mind and body that housed that idea. In the Peace Mission, that idea was then housed in the body of Father Divine, to be both championed and lived by his enthusiastic followers. While most of these were the descendents of former slaves and others the white children of privilege, all lived together under Father\u2019s teachings in dilapidated inner-city homes and apartments, in formally segregated grand hotels, and on expansive rural farms. After his death, his movement, once so vibrant, transitioned into a dwindling, aging society for the commemoration of his memory in his converted manor home of the stately rich. Instead of being on the cutting edge of American social progress, \u2028the Peace Mission is now irrelevant and largely unknown to the larger world.[16] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Housing \u2028GOD: The Example Of Peoples Temple<\/strong><\/p>\n

The mind of Jim Jones \u2028also housed the same radical, interracialist and utopian ideas that had\u2028 animated Samuel Morris and George Baker Jr. before him. He too would use the\u2028language of the Christian church to convey deeper meanings, more far-reaching \u2028in practice than the established and contemporary church was ready or willing \u2028to go, in his quest to right the injustices of the world. His vehicle was \u2028Peoples Temple, with roots in both the Methodist and non-denominational\u2028 evangelical churches of Indianapolis, with eventual affiliations with the \u2028Independent Assemblies of God and the Disciples of Christ, but most significantly, with a \u2028physical church.[17] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t long after Jones \u2028established his ministry that he, his wife, and his top associates went on the \u2028first of many visits to the elderly and declining Father Divine. They arrived \u2028at his lavish retirement castle and attended Peace Mission church services held \u2028in a converted seventh-floor ballroom next to another expansive room that itself had been converted into a huge dining area in the Divine Lorraine Hotel.[18] <\/sup><\/a><\/span> Jones enjoyed himself immensely in the atmosphere of the Peace Mission.[19] <\/sup><\/a><\/span> Some of his more orthodox church officers realized, though, that \u2013 despite \u2028references to God and the Bible \u2013 the churches of the Peace Mission were not \u2028typical or conventional. They were simply superficial trappings of a much \u2028deeper radical utopian understanding and practice, one which could be described – in the era of the prevailing 1950\u2032s white racist male chauvinist ethic \u2013 only as subversive. It was a radical movement masquerading as a church. Given Jones\u2019 later history, this inside\/outside fa\u00e7ade of the Peace Mission would seem to be one of the characteristics that secured a strong and lifelong attraction of Jim Jones for the Peace Mission and its members. He and they had similar goals, and even a similar ways of reaching those goals.[20] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Posing as part of the orthodox mainstream church, Jim Jones\u2019 ministry attracted the positive attention of both the public and his church superiors through the innovative ways that he emphasized the social gospel. Peoples Temple Christian Church of the Disciples of Christ served hot meals and provided health screenings, job referrals and even coal to the Indianapolis homeless and under-employed, regardless of race, creed or marital status. He offered senior citizen care through a private business run by family members, and his personal home blended aspects of his ministerial work. His care and concern for stray animals and people turned his home into a nascent commune.[21] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Like Fathers Jehovia and Divine before him, Jim Jones took his ministry on the road in the early 1960\u2032s, making missionary stops further afield than either of the two organizers before him in their itinerate days. With stops in Cuba and British Guiana \u2013 the future Guyana \u2013 on the way, Jim Jones and his family moved to Belo Horizonte, Brazil, where they lived about a year.<\/p>\n

Even though his still-developing ministry was far more conventional than the founders of the proto-Peace Mission tendency, Jim Jones had been through several church structures, all while building his place at the center of a ministry that he initiated, founded and led.<\/p>\n

Returning to the US in 1963, Jones gathered his Indiana flock and led them to northern rural California two years later. There, on the outskirts of Ukiah, Peoples Temple established roots, acquiring acres of farm land, developing care facilities for senior citizens and foster children, and \u2013 most significantly \u2013 building a church\/meeting hall structure adjacent to the Jones parsonage. From this headquarters, Jones began to expand his ministry to the great urban centers of San Francisco and Los Angeles, purchasing properties in both cities. Peoples Temple was following a pattern that mimicked and combined features of the Peace Mission and from its own past, with communal living and worship space for its growing numbers carved from rented and leased homes, apartment buildings, and – in the Peace Mission case \u2013 a former hotel. Even the Temple spatial arrangement of a rural headquarters combined with an aggressive inner city outreach in large cities, all served by a fleet of buses decorated and painted with messages of the ministry, was reminiscent of the Peace Mission of the 1930\u2032s.[22] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Jonestown<\/strong>[23] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

In 1974, ground was broken for the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project in Guyana, South America. Although the Temple also maintained a communal headquarters at Lahama Gardens, Georgetown – mainly for logistical and administrative purposes \u2013 it was to the interior agricultural project that the members of Peoples Temple would relocate to en masse three years later. A small town area initially designed to accommodate a slow but steady influx of residents until it reached a population of 750, instead exploded into a small city of over a thousand. Jonestown housing consisted of \u201ccabins painted in pastel colors .small huts called troolies made of palm leaves [and] large thatched covered dormitories\u201d that served as communal living places for the elderly.[24] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

There were other structures built as well, including a radio tower, barns and facilities to house various forms of livestock as well as storage facilities for foodstuff, medicines, and supplies. There was a school, a library, a communal laundry, a health clinic, a sewing factory, a soap factory, a brick factory, and a sawmill. Its food preparation facilities featured a central kitchen, a bakery and herb kitchen. Jonestown even had a basketball court.[25] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

A large communal open air pavilion served multiple functions: a sit down cafeteria\/dining area, a class room, and space to hold Peoples rallies, community meetings and entertainment both for themselves and for visiting guests. This was also the structure where residents gathered to listen to \u201cFather\/Dad\u201d Jones teach, lecture and harangue his followers, and of course, it was also here that the infamous \u201dwhite night\u201d suicide drills were rehearsed over the last few months. The pavilion was central in Jonestown\u2019s final 24 hours, from a gathering place to entertain the congressional delegation, to a point of assembly and departure for defectors, to the site of most of the deaths during the murder\/suicide ritual. Among the hundreds of bodies inside and ringing the pavilion were those of Mother and Father Jones. Thus in retrospect, this edifice becomes iconic as a symbol of housing the community of Jim Jones in life and in death.<\/p>\n

GOD\u2019s Jonestown House<\/strong>[26] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Communal housing was the norm and the expectation for the all the residence of Jonestown. With the exception of some early communards and Temple stalwarts, like \u201cMom\u201d and \u201cPop\u201d Jackson, who lived together in a troolie hut, most Jonestown residents lived in groups of four or six to a cabin and more in the large dormitories.<\/p>\n

Father Jones was no exception. The \u201cWest House,\u201d a two bedroom cabin with a screened porch, served as the communal residence for Jim Jones, Carolyn Layton, Maria Katsaris, Annie Moore and John Victor Stoen. According to one account, the bedrooms were separated by \u201ca tiny room with an army \u2013 type field telephone\u201d that was used to reach \u201cthe radio room and the public address system.\u201d The only material difference between Jones and his followers was that he had a personal refrigerator, separate medicines and food located within reach, as well as private papers on Temple and Jonestown business in his bedroom\/office.[27] <\/sup><\/a><\/span> As all of these amenities could be accessed by his immediate secretarial and physical support staff, Father was just as communal as the followers or children. In some respects, Jones\u2019 personal space \u2013 shared with his immediate staff – formed a communal clique both within and separate from the larger Jonestown commune. It is also noteworthy that in the end, while Jim Jones joined his wife and many followers in death at the pavilion, his home was where much of his leadership group died.[28] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The Shrine to Life \u2013 Jonestown style<\/strong>[29] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

While the vast majority of Father Divine\u2019s followers are buried in unmarked graves, and the vast majority of the Jonestown dead lay in and around the pavilion before being removed back to the US, only two persons who died in the combined movements of Father Jehovia, Father Divine and Jim Jones were given any type of movement memorialized graves. One was Father Divine in 1968. The other was, Lynetta Jones, the Mother of God in the Temple movement.<\/p>\n

Lynetta Jones died in Jonestown of natural causes at the age of 75 on December 9, 1977. Her grave marker read \u201cLynetta P. Jones: In commemoration of the true fighter for justice; who gave the ultimate, who gave up her son so he could serve the people in the struggle for justice, for freedom from oppression and for the foundation of socialism.\u201d According to one account, she was \u201cburied in a place of honor near his [Jim Jones’] cabin,\u201d[30] <\/sup><\/a><\/span> while another holds that \u201cshe was buried among the children to emphasize life.\u201d[31] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Jonestown Deaths aftermath Controversy and final resting place<\/strong><\/p>\n

The removal of the Jonestown dead, including Jim Jones, became the responsibility of the US military after the tragedy. Jones\u2019 body was identified, transported back to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, autopsied, and cremated, and his ashes were scattered over the Atlantic Ocean. Many of the followers\u2019 bodies, once transported back to the US, were identified and claimed by grieving relatives who then gave the deceased formal burials.[32] <\/sup><\/a><\/span> But almost half of the bodies \u2013 408 in all \u2013 like their dead Peace Mission counterparts before them, remained unidentified and unclaimed. Efforts began to find a final resting place for them to be buried in a mass grave. Only one cemetery – Evergreen in Oakland \u2013 agreed to take all the bodies, and, after excavating a hillside on the cemetery\u2019s south side, it stacked the coffins, recontoured the area with dirt and sod. The formal service for the unclaimed bodies was held in May 1979, six months after the deaths. From November 1979 through present day, Rev. Jynona Norwood has led a memorial service at the site of the mass grave. and preparations were made to bury them, together in an unmarked grave in Oakland.[33] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

The ministries and movements of Fathers\u2019 Jehovia, Divine and Jones\u2019 approach to and use of buildings, homes and worship space was very similar. All three were radical utopian visionaries who sought to use the normative \u2013 homes, halls, synagogues, hotels, churches and farmlands \u2013 to house there extraordinary social experiments.<\/p>\n

While Father Jehovia\u2019s following never graduated past the communal house stage and vanished into obscurity early in the 20th century, the movement of his most well-known disciple, Father Divine, for a while took center stage before the eyes of a fascinated public in the 1930\u2032s. Using a core group of followers dedicated to living his teachings of radical interracial communalism, Father Divine challenged the prevailing racial social norms of the USA and much of the western world. Extrapolating from the familiar physical trappings of a church, his movement rented, bought and occupied homes, hotels, apartments and synagogues to live together \u2013 regardless of race \u2013 to underscore, challenge, and confront that segregation, reality the skin color hierarchy of white domination and black oppression, caused. It was left to two white followers of his, the ultra-wealthy follower Warner Hunt (aka John Devout) and his wife, Mother Divine, to memorialize the movement through edifices strictly related to Father Divine\u2019s personal use, the monumental retirement palace where he lived his last 12 years, and the hexagonal crypt built on the palace grounds. Without these two structures to house its memories, history may have cast the Peace Mission into the same oblivion that it has cast the original movement from which it grew.<\/p>\n

Jim Jones started off as a radical white young minister with an obscure church advocating and practicing racial integration. His approach to physical structures was as utilitarian as both Fathers Jehovia and Divine before him. Unlike either, though, he followed through on buying land and building material, physical structures on it to house a utopian community, and ultimately a Divine, vanishing city.[34] <\/sup><\/a><\/span> What he first envisioned implementing in Brazil, he built in rural northern California and finally in Guyana. What has survived is the church building in Redwood Valley, even though the movement that built it did not. Constructed in the form of a church, it is another religious denomination that now uses it for services.[35] <\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Thus in the final analysis, Jim Jones has succeeded, where Father Divine didn\u2019t,[36] <\/sup><\/a><\/span> in erecting in the architecture of our minds the memory of his works, and thus housing it in our collective consciousness for some time to come.<\/p>\n

Sources<\/b><\/p>\n

Black,\u2028 E. The Three Virtual Intentional Communities Of God In A Body In Real \u2028Time (1868-2008)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2014. The Reincarnations Of God: George Baker Jr. and Jim Jones as\u2028 Fathers Divine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2014. \u201cEver Faithful\u201d: The contest between Mother Divine, Jim Jones \u2028and their followers for supremacy in faithfulness to the Cause<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chidester, \u2028David. Salvation and Suicide: Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple and Jonestown<\/i><\/a>. Bloomington and Indianapolis: \u2028University of Indiana Press, 2003.<\/p>\n

Divine,\u2028 Mother. The Peace Mission Movement<\/em>. New York: Anno Domini Father Divine\u2028Publications, 1982.<\/p>\n

Hall, John \u2028R. Gone From The Promised Land<\/em>. New Brunswick, N.J.: \u2028Transaction Publishers, 1987; reprint 2004.<\/p>\n

Harris, \u2028Sara. Father Divine: Holy Husband<\/em>. New York: Macmillan Publishing\u2028 Company, 1971.<\/p>\n

Hayden,\u2028 Dolores. Seven American Utopias: The Architecture of Communitarian Socialism, \u20281790-1975<\/em>. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1979.<\/p>\n

Hoshor,\u2028 John. God In A Rolls Royce: The Rise of Father Divine: Madman, Menace or\u2028Messiah<\/em>. Hillman-Curl, Inc., New York, 1936.<\/p>\n

Kohl, \u2028Laura Johnston. The Architecture Of Jonestown and How It Both Created the\u2028Community and Ultimately Destroyed It<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Maaga,\u2028 Mary McCormick. Hearing the Voices of Jonestown<\/i><\/a>. Syracuse, \u2028N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1998.<\/p>\n

Mabee, Carleton. Promised\u2028 Land: Father Divine\u2019s Interracial Communities in Ulster County, New York.<\/em> Fleischmanns, NY: Purple Mountain Press, 2008.<\/p>\n

Moore, \u2028Rebecca. Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple<\/em>. Westport, \u2028CT: Praeger, 2009.<\/p>\n

Parker,\u2028 Robert Allerton. The Incredible Messiah: The Deification of \u2028Father Divine<\/em>. Boston: Little, Brown and\u2028 Company, 1937.<\/p>\n

Primiano, \u2028Leonard Norman. \u201cBringing perfection in these different places: Father Divine\u2019s\u2028 vernacular architecture of intention.\u201d<\/a> Folklore 115:1 (April \u20282004), 3-26.<\/p>\n

Reiterman,\u2028 Tim, with John Jacobs. Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim\u2028 Jones and His People<\/em>. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1982.<\/p>\n

Watts, \u2028Jill. God, Harlem, U.S.A.: The Father Divine Story<\/em>. Berkeley: University of\u2028California Press, 1995).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Notes<\/strong><\/p>\n

[1]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> This work is informed by Seven American Utopias: The Architecture of Communitarian Socialism, \u20281790-1975 by Dolores Hayden (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1979); \u201cBringing perfection in these different places: Father Divine\u2019s\u2028 vernacular architecture of intention,\u201d<\/a>\u2028 by Leonard Norman Primiano, Folklore 115:1 (April 2004), 3-26; and The Architecture Of Jonestown and How It Both Created the \u2028Community and Ultimately Destroyed It<\/a>,\u2028 by Laura Johnston Kohl.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> Articles by this author\u2028 exploring the connections between the Peace Mission of Father Divine and the \u2028Peoples Temple are available here<\/a>. See also Raven: The Untold Story\u2028 of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People<\/em> by Tim Reiterman with John Jacobs (New York: E. P. Dutton,\u2028 1982), 57-66;\u2028 and Understanding Jonestown and Peoples Temple<\/em> by Rebecca Moore (Westport, CT: Praeger, \u20282009), 15-17.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> \u201cJesus never taught the \u2028Kingdom of Heaven above the sky, they say, but affirm that He said, \u2018Behold, \u2028the Kingdom of GOD is within you,\u2019\u201d and \u201cDo you realize that you have been \u2028walking and talking in GOD, and GOD has been walking and talking in you all the \u2028way along? But you did not know it. You had an idea that GOD was in your\u2028 imaginations. You saw GOD some place far beyond the blue ether, as it is \u2028supposed to be \u2013 and that is nothing and nowhere, and everywhere where there is \u2028nothing. Now many may say to you that you must die and go far beyond the sky to \u2028meet your GOD, and that has been, and still is being taught by many. But we are\u2028 conscious that here and now, and here and there and everywhere, is your GOD.\u201d \u2028Peace Mission<\/a>. On Peoples Temple use \u2028of the term, see Salvation and Suicide: Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple and Jonestown<\/i><\/a> by David Chidester (Bloomington and\u2028 Indianapolis: University of Indiana Press, 2003), 52-55.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> See note 3 above.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> See Promised Land: Father \u2028Divine\u2019s Interracial Communities in Ulster County, New York<\/em>, by Carleton Mabee (Fleischmanns, NY: Purple \u2028Mountain Press, 2008), 110, 141 and 212.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> More in-depth on the\u2028 development of the Peoples Temple in Reiterman.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> A picture of Father \u2028Jehovia, the founding leader of this movement, is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> More on Father Jehovia \u2028and the young George Baker Jr. (Father Divine) in God, Harlem, U.S.A.: The \u2028Father Divine Story<\/em>, by Jill \u2028Watts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995) 27-31.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> For the Peace Mission \u2028movement during its peak in contemporary works, see God In A Rolls Royce: \u2028The Rise of Father Divine: Madman, Menace or Messiah, by John Hoshor (Hillman-Curl, Inc., New\u2028 York, 1936) and The Incredible Messiah: The Deification of Father Divine by Robert Allerton Parker (Boston: Little, Brown \u2028and Company, 1937).<\/p>\n

[10]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> For more on the Peace \u2028Mission of Father Divine, see notes 5, 8 and 9, as well as the Peace Mission<\/a>, a sermon from \u2028libertynet.org<\/a> and Tommy Garcia<\/a> websites.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> See note 5 above.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> Information on the Peace\u2028 Mission\u2019s Woodmount estate available on Wikipedia<\/a> and the Peace Mission<\/a> website. More information\u2028 available at the tour of \u2028Woodmont<\/a>. \u2028For Warner Hunt\u2019s purchase of Woodmont estate for Father Divine, see Mabee, \u2028155-156.<\/p>\n

[13]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> On the use of the\u2028 phraseology in regards to the death of Father Divine, see The Peace Mission \u2028Movemen<\/em>t, \u2028by Mother Divine (New York: Anno Domini Father Divine Publications, 1982), 99.<\/p>\n

[14]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> On Father Divine\u2019s crypt \u2028with pictures, see The Shrine To Life At Woodmont<\/a> and The Lower \u2028Merion Historical Society<\/a>. See also Mother Divine, 60-61.<\/p>\n

[15]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> \u201cWe cut all ties of \u2028blood relationships. We live as though we died and went to heaven,\u201d says the \u2028mission at the Fellowship\u2028 for Intentional Community. For a detailed overview of this aspect of the Peace \u2028Mission often overlooked and under reported on by researchers and never \u2028critically assessed in Pro Peace Mission apologetics, the treatment in death of \u2028the average Peace Mission follower, see chapter 9, \u201cLet the Dead Bury the\u2028Dead,\u201d 116-127, in Sara \u2028Harris, Father Divine: Holy Husband (New York: Macmillan Publishing\u2028 Company, 1971).\u2028 This is not only interesting in its own right, but it also has interesting\u2028 implications and possible insights for the researcher into possible convergent \u2028Peoples Temple attitudes around questions of the deaths of the average Temple members as well as possible insights into the Temple mentality that produced \u2028the final white night and its immediate aftermath.<\/p>\n

[16]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> On the long decline of \u2028the Peace Mission movement under Mother Divine, see the Los Angeles Times 2003 article, \u201cFather \u2028Divine\u2019s movement slowly fades\u201d<\/a> and Mabee, 207-213.<\/p>\n

[17]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> See Moore, Understanding\u2028 Jonestown<\/em>, 12-15, and Reiterman.<\/p>\n

[18]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> For more information on \u2028the Divine Lorraine Hotel, see Wikipedia<\/a>. For historical \u2028pictures of the building, see the Library of Congress<\/a> website. For a\u2028 historical view of the Lorraine during the time of Jim Jones, see the article at the libertynet<\/a> site. For contemporary \u2028pictures of the hotel in its current dilapidated state, see the Kingston\u2028 Lounge preservation<\/a> site.<\/p>\n

[19]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> Mabee, 213.<\/p>\n

[20]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> See notes 2 and 19\u2028 above.<\/p>\n

[21]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> Reiterman, 56-57.<\/p>\n

[22]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> Reiterman, 91-219;\u2028 Moore, Understanding Jonestown<\/em>, 22-40; Mabee, 91-116; and Watts, 72-166.<\/p>\n

[23]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> Moore, Understanding \u2028Jonestown<\/em>, 41-56; Reiterman, 345-350.<\/p>\n

[24]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> Pictures of the Peoples Temple Lahama Gardens Headquarters structure in Georgetown Guyana and of \u2028the cabins in Jonestown can be seen \u2028on this site<\/a>. <\/p>\n

[25]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> The Jonestown radio \u2028tower and the basketball \u2028court can be seen here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[26]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> Three pictures of the \u2028Jonestown cabin of Jim Jones can be seen here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[27]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> Reiterman, 398 and Kohl<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[28]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> Reiterman, 571-580; and \u2028Moore, Understanding Jonestown<\/em>, 95-102.<\/p>\n

[29]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> Father Divine is buried \u2028in a crypt called \u2018The Shrine to Life\u201d on the grounds of the Woodmont \u2028estate (see note 14 above). This Peoples Temple counter part applies to the\u2028 Mother of Jim Jones Lynetta P. Jones. Due to the circumstances surrounding the \u2028end of Jonestown and Peoples Temple itself, the rainforest eventually reclaimed \u2028the Jonestown site, and as of this writing the original location of Mrs. Jones\u2028 memorial plaque and gravesite are not precisely known. See What happened to Jonestown After November 18, 1978<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[30]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> On Lynetta Jones honored\u2028 as the \u201cadvance guard of socialism\u201d during a final White Night testimonial see Hearing the Voices of Jonestown<\/i><\/a> by Mary McCormick Maaga (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse\u2028 University Press, 1998), \u2028164. On the inscription on her memorial plaque, see Gone From The Promised\u2028 Land<\/em>, 248 by John R. Hall (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, \u20281987; reprint 2004), \u2028248. On the point that she was \u201cburied in a place of honor near his [Jim\u2028 Jones’] cabin,\u201d see What happened to the graves of the people who died in Jonestown before November 1978?<\/a> on this site.<\/p>\n

[31]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> See Edith Roller\u2028 diary<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[32]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> On the fate of the\u2028 bodies of the Jonestown dead, see What happened to the bodies at Jonestown?<\/a> On the fate of the body of Jim Jones, see What was the disposition of Jim Jones\u2019 body?<\/a><\/p>\n

[33]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> The Norwood family \u2028pioneered the services at the Evergreen memorial site. Their account can be\u2028 found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[34]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> As far back as 1917,\u2028 George Baker Jr. in his persona as the Reverend Major Jealous Devine, revealed\u2028 to his tiny following that the purpose of his coming was to prepare a vanishing\u2028 city of the faithful whom he called the pure in heart. Watts, 43. Although the\u2028 meaning of this prophecy of a vanishing city has had various interpretations by\u2028students of the Peace Mission phenomena over the years, it is this researcher\u2019s \u2028studied view that it was Jim Jones, in his guise as the reincarnation of Father \u2028Divine, who successfully fulfilled this stated \u201cDivine Purpose\u201d by building, \u2028then ending the city of Jonestown as he did. I am convinced by the evidence\u2028 that Jones did so with this \u201cDivine Goal\u201d in mind.<\/p>\n

[35]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> On the present day use\u2028 of the Redwood Valley, California former Peoples Temple Church building, the \u2028only Peoples Temple built structure left in the world, now an Assemblies of God\u2028 church see Transformed<\/a> by Kim Harvey.<\/p>\n

[36]<\/span><\/sup><\/a> Although the work and \u2028teachings of the Peace Mission leader did influence the popular culture of the \u2028post war 1940\u2032s and early 1950\u2032s through the lyrics of the ever popular song \u201cAc-Cent-Tchu-Ate \u2028the Positive\u201d<\/a> \u2028by Johnny Mercer who wrote about how and why he came up with the tune. \u201cI went \u2028to hear Father Divine and he had a sermon and his subject was \u2018you got to \u2028accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative.\u2019 And I said \u2018Wow, that\u2019s a \u2028colorful phrase!\u2019\u201d<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(E. Black’s complete collection of writings for the jonestown report may be found here.) In previous papers, we have explored some similarities and differences in the religious, philosophical and behavioral manifestations of the movements of Father Divine\u2019s Peace Mission and Jim Jones\u2019 Peoples Temple. This article[1] considers a seemingly more mundane issue \u2013 the physical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":29485,"menu_order":9,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-29255","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29255","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\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29255"}],"version-history":[{"count":47,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134040,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29255\/revisions\/134040"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/29485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}