As a third-year history major at UC\u00a0Berkeley this past year, I took a semester-long seminar entitled “‘Race’ and\u00a0Racism in the United States in Comparative Perspective.” When my professor, Dr.\u00a0Mark Brilliant, asked us to do in-depth primary source research on the topic of\u00a0our choice, I knew that I wanted to delve into a local issue. Since I am\u00a0especially interested in contemporary San Francisco history, I began looking\u00a0into Jim Jones’ San Francisco-based Peoples Temple. Before long, I uncovered a\u00a0wealth of intriguing sources, especially at San Francisco’s California\u00a0Historical Society archive, which provided the basis for my research. While I\u00a0was at first overwhelmed by the vast amount of Peoples Temple information at\u00a0the Historical Society, as well as all of the topics other scholars had\u00a0previously researched, my own Jim Jones story began to unfold. Initially, I had\u00a0viewed Peoples Temple as a cult-like anomaly that happened to be based in San\u00a0Francisco, but soon I began to see the that the Temple had a complex and\u00a0intertwined racial, political, and religious history.<\/i><\/p>\n
Fascinated by my research and the\u00a0documents I studied, I know there is still a lot I can discover about Peoples\u00a0Temple as an institution with a dual racial and political identity. Therefore,\u00a0I will likely expand my Peoples Temple research into my senior thesis during\u00a0Spring 2009.<\/i><\/p>\n
You can reach me at bagee@berkeley.edu<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0“I know<\/i> that I’m\u00a0black,” Jim Jones declared in 1973.\u00a0 He later explained:\u00a0 “We need<\/i> black\u00a0identity.”[1]<\/span><\/a>\u00a0 With messages like these, Jones, a\u00a0white pastor, along with an estimated two-thirds white leadership,[2]<\/a> cultivated an “80 to 90 percent black”\u00a0congregation at his San Francisco Peoples Temple.[3]<\/a> The Temple’s infamous downfall came on\u00a0November 18, 1978, when amid allegations of church abuse and corruption,[4]<\/a> around 900 of Reverend Jim Jones’ followers committed suicide at the church’s settlement, “Jonestown,” in Guyana.\u00a0 By then the Temple had traveled great distances.\u00a0 Jones founded the church in the 1950s in Indianapolis, Indiana.\u00a0 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]<\/a> 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.\u00a0 The Temple enjoyed notoriety and political clout as a “human service ministry,” comprised of people “from all racial, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds.”[6]<\/a> 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.”\u00a0Due 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.<\/p>\n Scholars have mostly studied\u00a0Peoples Temple in terms of who joined Jones’ cause and why, in addition to what type of institution the Temple was.\u00a0 E. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya propose that most African American members were “impoverished and d\u00e9class\u00e9,”[7]<\/a> 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]<\/a> Arguments also vary regarding why black\u00a0members joined.\u00a0 Sawyer notes the inadequacy of other local churches,[9]<\/a> Tanya Hollis explains Peoples Temple’s attempt to offer economic solutions,[10]<\/a> and more broadly, some scholars believe the Temple was seen as an alternative to urban racism.[11]<\/a> In addition, Rebecca Moore calls Peoples Temple a “black religious group,”[12]<\/a> whereas Lincoln and Mayima say Jones led a political and religious “cult.”[13]<\/a> 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\u00a0duality.<\/p>\n Prior to coming to San Francisco, Peoples Temple embedded itself in a mixed-race public image through rhetoric and political activism.\u00a0 Jones preached an integrationist vision in Indianapolis, aligning his congregation with the civil rights movement.\u00a0 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]<\/a> Jones described his Indiana parishioners:\u00a0 “About a fifth of the church’s 300 members are Negro.”[15]<\/a>\u00a0 He used his own race to shape the Indiana church’s mixed-race atmosphere, portraying his childhood family as interracial,[16]<\/a> noting his part-Cherokee[17]<\/a> heritage, and adopting a “rainbow\u00a0family.”[18]<\/a> Integration was a “question of [his] son’s future”[19]<\/a> 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]<\/a> 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]<\/a><\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 Jones continued boasting about his “adopted seven children of all races.”[22]<\/a> The business card of the Temple’s Associate Minister formally read: “A Multi-Racial Inter-Faith Human Service Ministry,”[23]<\/a> and public ephemera regularly called the Temple an “interracial religious movement.”[24]<\/a> The Peoples Forum<\/i>, the Temple’s monthly newspaper and main source of promotion and communication, pictured three faces of different races on its header.[25]<\/a><\/p>\n Politically, Peoples Temple displayed its interracial ideology through activism.\u00a0 Jones publicized Peoples Temple’s “cooperative, non-violent, true apostolic socialism” creed as being “an alternative to totalitarian fascism or communism,”[26]<\/a> ultimately aiming to create a “decent life for all people” and dispelling “racial divisions and economic injustice.”<\/span>[27]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 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,<\/span>[28]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> and the ACLU Foundation.<\/span>[29]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 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,<\/span>[30]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> at San Francisco’s International Hotel.<\/span>[31]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 The Temple’s interracial activism helped produce multi-ethnic affiliations, such as with Native American activist Dennis Banks<\/span>[32]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> and the local Jewish community<\/span>.<\/span>[33]<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span>The Temple’s mixed-race humanitarian support, in turn, fostered Jones’ connections to and involvement in San Francisco’s political establishment.\u00a0 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.<\/span>[34]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 A San Francisco Chronicle<\/i> article referenced Rosalynn Carter, Vice President Walter Mondale, and Senator Mike Gravel as being among Jones’ major political backers.<\/span>[35]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 In 1976, San Francisco Mayor George Moscone said Jones’ “spiritual energy and civic commitment are virtually boundless.”<\/span>[36]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 Moscone served as Jones’ pathway to direct political clout, appointing Jones to the San Francisco Housing Commission in 1976.\u00a0 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.”<\/span>[37]<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span>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.”<\/span>[38]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.”<\/span>[39]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 Smith described how Jones’ sermon rhetoric “used the same metaphorical, theological language and vocabulary” Smith and other black preachers employed, including participatory “call and\u00a0<\/span>response” and “oral tradition.”<\/span>[40]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 Smith explained, “If you closed your eyes and listened to him preach, you would swear you were listening to a black man.”<\/span>[41]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 In 1953, W. E. B. Du Bois noted the traditional Black Church focus on “the Preacher,”<\/span>[42]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> and Jones represented the archetypal, dominant Pentecostal Black Church pastor, acting as a traditional “charismatic” leader and speaking in tongues in sermons.<\/span>[43]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 Jones also asserted his paternalism to his congregants, like in 1973:\u00a0 “Father will take you in,”<\/span>[44]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> likely shaped after Father Divine, the African American religious leader of a mid-1950s “interracial movement.”<\/span>[45]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 Jones made even grander Pentecostal “Prophet” and “messenger of God”<\/span>[46]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> claims, and referenced his own “Godliness,” including fervently in 1974:\u00a0 “when I say Goddamnit it, I guess I can damn it, because I’m God.”<\/span>[47]<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span>While presenting himself as black, Jones also sought to give his congregation an all-black identity.\u00a0 He claimed that his parishioners were African American: “you look white, but honey, you’re a nigger like Father Jim.”<\/span>[48]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 Peoples Temple services also followed customary Black Church practices.\u00a0 Milmon F. Harrison explains how services modeled “emotionally expressive Pentecostal tradition” rooted in “traditional black worship styles.”<\/span>[49]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 Peoples Temple adhered to traditional emphasis on “the Music, and the Frenzy” that Du Bois cited in black churches;<\/span>[50]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> key worship elements included organ music, along with “shouts, cheering, or the clapping of hands.”<\/span>[51]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 <\/span>Temple visitors described services having “African-style dance” and “inspirational songs” often “associated with the civil rights movement,” such as “We Shall Overcome.”<\/span>[52]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 A 1976 Peoples Forum<\/i> article illustrated how American culture associated ” ‘white’ with goodness and ‘black’ with evil.”<\/span>[53]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 In sermons, Jones also discussed society’s predisposition to whiteness:\u00a0 “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.”<\/span>[54]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 Countering this conventional racism, Jones told his congregants:\u00a0 “Black is a disposition<\/i>.\u00a0 To act against\u00a0<\/i><\/span>evil<\/i>.\u00a0 To do good.”<\/span>[55]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 At the same time, Temple literature and sermons included millennialist, apocalyptic fear of racial attack, especially against African Americans.\u00a0 A 1976 Peoples Forum <\/i>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,<\/span>[56]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> designed to cultivate panic specifically amongst black readership.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Jones’ congregation also functioned as a black institution in its ministry with its healing and communalism.\u00a0 Temple stationary depicted the Temple as a charitable sanctuary by including biblical passage Matthew 25:35-40:\u00a0 “For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: . I was a stranger, and ye took me in.”<\/span>[57]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 This verse, along with Jones’ “spiritual healing services,”<\/span>[58]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> aligned Peoples Temple with the traditional Black Church and therapeutic Pentecostalism.<\/span>[59]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 In addition, Du Bois explained how the Black Church was the “social centre of Negro life,” and a “communistic institution.”<\/span>[60]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 Peoples Temple attempted to offer such support:\u00a0 “if you want safety<\/i>, if you want strength<\/i>, if you want refuge<\/i>. come <\/i>on over.”<\/span>[61]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 A Peoples Forum<\/i> explained that parishioners were not just “members,” but that the church influenced daily life, acting as an “extended family.”<\/span>[62]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 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,.<\/span>[63]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>\u00a0 In addition, the Temple expanded on traditional Black Church community support, using strategies similar to the 1960s Black Panther Party (BPP).\u00a0 The BPP’s “survival programs,” like food and medical help,<\/span>[64]<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a> were akin to the Temple’s dormitories, “infirmary, child care center, carpentry shop, printing press, and kitchens.”<\/span>[65]<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span>Peoples Temple also reflected blackness, and specifically the Black Church, by combining religiosity with its political commitment.\u00a0 Originally, “slave theology gave rise to Black activism,”<\/span>