{"id":60621,"date":"2014-07-02T19:38:58","date_gmt":"2014-07-02T19:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=60621"},"modified":"2019-02-22T16:06:18","modified_gmt":"2019-02-23T00:06:18","slug":"q968-summary","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=60621","title":{"rendered":"Q968 Summary"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary prepared by Fielding M. McGehee III. If you use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you.<\/strong><\/i><\/p>\n

To return to the Tape Index, click here.<\/a>
\nTo read the Annotated Tape Transcript, click here<\/a>.
\nTo read the Tape Transcript, click here<\/a>. Listen to MP3 (Pt. 1<\/a>, Pt. 2<\/a>).<\/p>\n

FBI Catalogue<\/strong> Jones Speaking<\/p>\n

FBI preliminary tape identification note:\u00a0<\/strong>Labeled in part \u201c9\/5\/73\u201d<\/p>\n

Date cues on tape:<\/strong> (June\/July 1973) Jones speaks of Watergate hearings, upcoming August bus trip for Temple members<\/p>\n

People named:<\/strong><\/p>\n

People in attendance at Peoples Temple service<\/em>
\nEugene Chaikin (by reference)
\nArchie Ijames (speaks)
\nSister Tyrone Johnson
\nWesley Johnson
\nJim Jones Jr. (by reference)
\nMarceline Jones (by reference)
\nTim Stoen (by reference)
\nGuy Young<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Brother Brown
\nSister Cunningham
\nBrother Ed
\nReverend Garrison
\nBrother Jackson
\nSister Jackson
\nPinkey [likely Hansberry]
\nSister Robinson
\nSister Taylor
\nReverend Williams
\nSister Younger<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sister Nystom [phonetic], Temple worker in Africa
\nBill Smith, son of parishioner<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Public figures\/National and international names:<\/em>
\nJohn Kennedy, assassinated U.S. President
\nRobert Kennedy, assassinated U.S. Senator
\nJohn Mitchell, Attorney General under Richard Nixon<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cassistant mayor,\u201d likely Deputy Mayor Joe Johnson of San Francisco (by reference)
\nTom Bradley, Mayor of Los Angeles (by reference)
\nCecil Williams, minister at Glide Memorial Methodist Church<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Randolph Hearst, newspaper publisher
\nPat Alexander, publisher of Los Angeles Herald-Dispatch<\/em> (by reference)<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

E. Howard Hunt, convicted for role in Watergate break-in
\nJim Garrison, New Orleans district attorney who investigated JFK assassination
\nJames Earl Ray (by reference), convicted assassin of Martin Luther King<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Angela Davis, University professor, member of Communist Party, black activist
\nBilly Smith, black soldier accused of fragging (described as son of Temple parishioner)
\nMartin Luther King Jr., civil rights activist
\nCoretta Scott King, widow of Martin Luther King
\nRalph Abernathy, Civil rights worker, president of Southern Christian Leadership Conference
\nJesse Jackson, head of PUSH<\/div>\n
Temple adversaries:<\/em>
\nLester Kinsolving, columnist, Peoples Temple antagonist<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bible verses cited:<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Editor’s note<\/strong>: The verses below appear in order of biblical reference, not as they appear in Jim Jones\u2019 address. For a complete scriptural index to the sermons of Jim Jones, click here<\/a>.)<\/i><\/p>\n

    \u201c[W]e got our placards and we marched around Jericho\u2019s walls.\u201d (Joshua 6)<\/p>\n

    \u201cSoft answers will turn away wrath many times.\u201d (Proverbs 15:1, \u201cA soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.\u201d)<\/p>\n

    \u201cI said I\u2019d turned the last cheek of my butt\u2026 But the principle of turning the other cheek, you can use that once, I\u2019m all for it. \u2026 So Martin [Luther King Jr.] passed, and he was the last chapter of Jesus\u2019 turning the other cheek.\u201d (Matthew 5:39, \u201cBut I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.\u201d Also, Luke 6:29)<\/p>\n

    \u201cYou should exactly go a few extra feet. I don\u2019t say you go two miles. Jesus said, when they ask you to go one mile, bearing the Roman slavemaster\u2019s pack, go two. Well, my dear, we\u2019ve been carrying the slavemaster\u2019s pack for 2000 years. Now we say, it did not work. And we won\u2019t carry his pack, not even one teensy-weensy damned inch.\u201d (Matthew 5:41, \u201cAnd whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain.\u201d)<\/p>\n

    \u201cIf we\u2019da prayed and got on our knees and said pray for those that do spitefully use you, [Lester] Kinsolving would\u2019ve destroyed us.\u201d (Matthew 5:44, \u201cI say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.\u201d See also, Luke 6:27, Luke 6:35)<\/p>\n

    \u201cAll things that are true try the spirit, try a principle.\u201d (1 John 4:1, \u201cBeloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.\u201d)<\/ol>\n

    Summary:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    While this 1973 address by Jim Jones to his congregation in the San Francisco Peoples Temple includes a handful of biblical references and some discussions of the political issues of the day, it focuses more on the power that the church offers its members. Sometimes defiant or purposefully confrontational, Jones spends more time telling the people in attendance what he has done \u2013 and can do \u2013 for his followers.<\/p>\n

    At several points, Jones gives a hint as to why he speaks the way he does this night. There are more outsiders than there normally are, people who have come for a healing, and while he says he will accommodate then eventually, there are a few things he wishes to tell them about Peoples Temple beforehand. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to get an understanding to get the healing,\u201d he says early in the address, then reiterates it late: \u201cThis church\u2019d be packed from wall-to-wall if we would let \u2018em come in here for healings. But we\u2019re seeking people in here that are concerned about liberation.\u201d<\/p>\n

    At the same time, he recognizes some of the visitors for their spotty attendance. He chastises them for coming once every six months for relief from their arthritis or similar ailments, and then returning to their home churches with their \u201cjackleg\u201d preachers who drive fancy cars and celebrate preachers\u2019 anniversaries and birthdays. While this language is familiar to Temple members, it apparently is too much for some of the irregular attendees, who try to sneak away during offerings or on other occasions. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to slip out,\u201d Jones says lightly at one point, then adds, \u201cIt\u2019s a circus to watch folk up here, I\u2019m tellin\u2019 you. Some of them come in here and they look around and see if there\u2019s anybody a member of their church. \u2026 If it wasn\u2019t such a tragedy that they\u2019re doing, it would be funny, but it\u2019s a tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

    There are reasons they should stay, Jones says. After enumerating the number of facilities the Temple has, especially in Redwood Valley \u2013 children\u2019s homes, senior citizen homes, sanatoriums, apartments \u2013 he talks about the people he keeps out of jail (or secures an early release, if they\u2019re in jail), the people who win their civil lawsuits because they do what he tells them, the people whose medical problems are less serious after they attend services, and everyone else who has had trouble fighting the system because they\u2019re black or poor.<\/p>\n

    To illustrate his point, he tells a long story about a woman from the church who was supposed to go to the hospital in an ambulance. She was disrespected by the attendants as they shoved her into the ambulance and locked her in, and tempers rose. The situation threatened to get out of control when a Temple member brandished a gun. The ensuing melee resulted in a number of people going to jail, including Jones himself. The story allows Jones to make several points: he was able to bring a measure of peace to prevent the situation from turning into a full scale riot; he performed several miracles, including making the gun disappear into thin air (\u201cIf you don\u2019t believe this, you can go check the records in the police department and see, they\u2019re still<\/em> looking for that gun. Here was a holster, here was the bullets, but the gun was gone. They grabbed him, but the moment they grabbed him, my spirit grabbed that gun\u201d) and then \u2013 \u201cthe other miracle\u201d \u2013 the woman disappeared from the ambulance. But most important, following his own arrest, he refused to leave the jail unless everyone with him was freed of all charges at the same time. \u201cAnd what happened? They all got dropped, and they let us all go. \u2026 [I]t\u2019s just to show you that we stick by each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Despite these demonstrations of his power and influence, he is willing to surrender it and unite with other church leaders, if only they would seek the same goals of black liberation that he does. If anyone knows of a church leader who does more for the oppressed in their community, he says, tell him about it, and \u201cI will unite with him. \u2026 I will be glad to be second-in-command to anyone that will be a better father than I am, but,\u201d he adds, \u201cI\u2019m an awfully good father, and I demand that whoever I follow has to be as good as father as I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

    He didn\u2019t have to have a facility for the Temple in San Francisco, he says \u2013 they could have used their financial resources for \u201cblack causes\u201d \u2013 but when Temple leaders approached Cecil Williams, a well-known Methodist minister, to ask about using Glide Memorial Church on days other than Sunday, they were turned away. \u201cHe said no,\u201d Jones reports Williams as saying, \u201cI\u2019m doing my thing. You go do your thing.\u201d It didn\u2019t help, Jones adds as an aside, that during one of the meetings between Jones\u2019 lieutenants and Williams, the minister had \u201ca young woman with her dress clear up to her hips setting there, flitting around with him on the knee \u2026 a spectacle that [Temple leaders] didn\u2019t particularly think was enhancing to liberation.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Many of the words \u2013 and much of his tone \u2013 about dealing with those outside the Temple are of defiance. Whether it\u2019s standing up to a societal nemesis like Ma Bell or a personal b\u00eate noire like Les Kinsolving of the San Francisco Examiner<\/em>, Jones evokes Jesus\u2019 words of peace from the Sermon on the Mount, only to dismiss them: they\u2019ve run of out cheeks to turn, they\u2019re not going to walk the extra mile or even one more inch. In one of his criticisms of the \u201cwhite man\u2019s religion\u201d that has served to enslaved blacks, both in the US and in South Africa, he speaks of a conversation that he had with Martin Luther King, Jr. \u2013 who, Jones says, \u201cdidn\u2019t believe in the Bible, no more than I did\u201d \u2013 in which the civil rights leader advised Jones to become a Baptist if he wanted people to listen. \u201cWell, he\u2019s dead. And they didn\u2019t listen \u2026 they didn\u2019t even listen with Martin being a Baptist. They didn\u2019t hear<\/em> what he was doing.\u201d And while King\u2019s wife pledged to non-violence shortly before his assassination, that was \u201ca mistake. She shoulda said, if Martin ever goes down, we will all fight to the last man and woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Jones\u2019 defiance extends to people who have stood in his way. Near the end of the tape, Jones speaks of an unnamed man who attacked them in the press, and who\u2019d since been \u201ccrushed below the mountain,\u201d whose wife had had a major heart attack, and whose daughter had died.<\/p>\n

    \u201cI said it exactly how it would happen,\u201d he adds. But why was it necessary for the child to die, he asks himself rhetorically. \u201cI took away that which would hurt him the most and which he would hurt the most. I know what I\u2019m doing. I can heal \u2026 but if you\u2019re going to skimp and refuse to help me help others that\u2019re starving, then be careful.\u201d<\/p>\n

    FBI Summary: <\/strong><\/p>\n

    Date of transcription: 7\/6\/79<\/p>\n

    In connection with the Federal Bureau of Investigation\u2019s investigation into the assassination of U.S. Congressman LEO J. RYAN at Port Kaituma, Guyana, South America, on November 18, 1978, a tape recording was obtained. This tape recording was located in Jonestown, Guyana, South America, and was turned over to U.S. Officials in Guyana and subsequently transported to the United States.<\/p>\n

    On June 23, 1979, Special Agent (name deleted) reviewed the tape numbered 1B110-33. This tape was found to contain the following:<\/p>\n

    JIM JONES delivering a church sermon detailing some of the accomplishments of PT.<\/p>\n

    Differences with FBI Summary: <\/strong><\/p>\n

    The summary is accurate and meets the FBI\u2019s purposes.<\/p>\n

    Tape originally posted July 2014<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Summary prepared by Fielding M. McGehee III. If you use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you. To return to the Tape Index, click here. To read the Annotated Tape Transcript, click here. To read the Tape Transcript, click here. Listen to MP3 (Pt. 1, Pt. 2). FBI Catalogue Jones Speaking FBI preliminary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":27996,"menu_order":643,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-60621","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/60621","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=60621"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/60621\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86083,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/60621\/revisions\/86083"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}