{"id":67325,"date":"2016-09-22T16:07:12","date_gmt":"2016-09-22T23:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=67325"},"modified":"2026-02-27T14:35:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T22:35:41","slug":"black-womens-film-confronts-the-whitewashing-of-jonestown","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=67325","title":{"rendered":"Black Women\u2019s Film Confronts the Whitewashing of Jonestown"},"content":{"rendered":"

For most people, the story of the 1978 Jonestown massacre is \u201csimple\u201d: a bunch of gullible Kool Aid drinking \u201ccultists\u201d from San Francisco followed a crazy manipulative white man into the jungle \u201cHeart of Darkness\u201d style and were systematically killed in the largest mass murder-suicide in American history. For decades, a succession of Jonestown productions \u2013 most notably the 1980 TV film Jim Jones: The Guyana Tragedy<\/em> \u2013 and countless books authored by white people, have focused squarely on the lethal charisma of the Reverend Jim Jones, leader of the infamous Peoples Temple church which emigrated to Guyana in the 1970s. Mainstream history\u2019s \u201cJones \u2018jones\u2019 \u201c whitewashes the fact that black people comprised over 75% of the church and that the majority of those who died in Jonestown were black women motivated by the utopic promise of a black paradise. In the turbulence and disillusionment of the post-Civil Rights, post-Vietnam era, Jonestown was supposed to be an antidote to the racial strife, economic inequality and segregation of the U.S. For black women and black people looking back, one of the profound lessons of Jonestown is that these conditions have only intensified in a nation in the twilight of a black presidency.<\/p>\n

\"hutchinson-wnbp-2\"<\/a>My 2015 novel and new film White Nights, Black Paradise<\/a><\/em> is a corrective to the erasure of this history.<\/p>\n

I decided to produce, write and direct a short film treatment of the novel with an all-black crew and predominantly black cast of insanely talented actors out of frustration with the parade of white savior\/redeemer\/villain representations of Jonestown. \u00a0The short film will be a springboard for a feature length treatment. Over the past few decades, films like Cry Freedom<\/em>, Mississippi Burning, Django Unchained<\/em> and, most recently, the cartoonish Stonewall,<\/em> have used charismatic white leads to tell histories that should revolve around black folk. Recent portrayals of Jonestown marginalize black women and omit the intersectional gender politics, queer identities and socio-historical context of the Peoples Temple movement. Even African American documentarian Stanley Nelson\u2019s otherwise on-point 2006 film<\/a> The Life and Death of Peoples Temple<\/em> fails to amplify black women\u2019s pivotal role in and contribution to the church\u2019s activism.<\/p>\n

Doing a film adaption also provided an opportunity to showcase underappreciated and underrepresented multigenerational black actresses. Many of the cast hail from screen and stage via Los Angeles\u2019 acclaimed black theatre company the Robey Theatre<\/a>, which was founded in 1994 by actors Ben Guillory<\/a> and Danny Glover.<\/p>\n

As adapted from the book, the film production centers on black women characters partly modeled on real life Peoples Temple members who went to Jonestown. Theatre pro Camille Lourde Wyatt plays Ernestine Markham, a character based on Christine Miller, the only person recorded challenging Jones\u2019 command that the community commit mass suicide on the so-called \u201cDeath Tape.\u201d Because there is so little known about Miller\u2019s background, I wanted to provide her fictional counterpart with a rich back story. In White Nights, Black Paradise<\/em>, Markham\/Miller is an English teacher, politically conscious \u201crace woman\u201d and Temple loyalist who speaks out when the corruption and abuse in the church become impossible for her to ignore.<\/p>\n

The diversity of belief systems in the church is reflected in the atheist and agnostic world views of lead protagonists and sisters, Taryn and Hy Strayer. Played by electric actresses Tiffany Coty<\/a> and Aba Arthur<\/a>, the often contentious pair becomes involved in the Temple out of a commitment to social justice in the Bay Area. This was the unifying theme in the lives of many surviving Temple members who lost family in Jonestown: black women and women of color like Jordan Vilchez<\/a>, Juanell Smart<\/a> and Leslie Wagner-Wilson<\/a>, the only black woman to pen an autobiography<\/a> on the tragedy (Jonestown survivor Hyacinth Thrash narrated her life story to an autobiographer for the book The Onliest One Alive: Surviving Jonestown, Guyana<\/em><\/a>), were all motivated to stay with the Temple because of family ties and the church\u2019s commitment to progressive politics.<\/p>\n

The rich gender and sexual diversity of the church is reflected in the characters Taryn, Devera Medeiros and Jess McPherson. Devera is a transwoman and writer cultivated by Jim Jones while Jess is a holistic therapist involved in an intense, often co-dependent love relationship with Taryn. \u00a0As played by Latonya Kitchen (making her film debut) and the riveting Dionne Neish<\/a>, both exemplify the ways in which strong, accomplished black women became ensnared by and complicit in the Temple\u2019s culture of persecution and terror. This dynamic is also illustrated by the role of Zephyr Threadgill, an aerospace engineer incisively rendered by Robbie Danzie<\/a>, who serves as Jim\u2019s \u201cprosecutor\u201d in a pernicious Salem Witch trial-esque interrogation scene. In her role as co-conspirator, Danzie is ably matched by veteran actor Darrell Philip<\/a>, who nails Jones\u2019 brooding megalomania.<\/p>\n

In tackling the key role of Taryn, Chicago-native Tiffany Coty said she was attracted to the film because of the dearth of meaty, complex roles for black women in the industry. Black actresses past the sexist \u201cprime\u201d of ing\u00e9nue must fight tooth and nail for limited opportunities in the Hollywood pipeline. Mainstream film has no use for older black women beyond the obligatory self-sacrificing mothers, white women sidekicks, or austere, Talented Tenth one-scene courtroom procedural judges.<\/p>\n

In our film, black women emerge as powerful historical actors representing the entire spectrum of religious belief, \u201capostasy\u201d and agency. They also have pivotal roles as documentarians of the church\u2019s politics and power struggles. Most fictional portrayals of Peoples Temple have avoided focusing on the complex role of the black press in the church\u2019s rise. White Nights, Black Paradise<\/em> highlights the influence of Carlton Goodlett, firebrand publisher of the once-prominent Sun Reporter<\/em> black newspaper chain as well as the Peoples Forum <\/em>newspaper. In the book and film, Goodlett\u2019s unwavering support of Jones and the Temple is offset by the critical presence of Ida Lassiter, a fictitious investigative journalist and activist. As played by actress and former reporter Janine Lancaster, Ida spars with Lourde\u2019s righteous Ernestine over the emigration of the church to Jonestown and her own checkered past with Jim Jones.<\/p>\n

The limitations of interracial \u201csisterhood\u201d and second wave feminist solidarity are epitomized by the divisive figure of Carol, played by Allison Blaize<\/a>. Modeled on Carolyn Layton<\/a>, a white Temple lieutenant, chief strategist and mother of one of Jones\u2019 children, Carol represents one of the biggest paradoxes of the church. White women, often sexually manipulated, were installed as \u201cgentle\u201d enforcers and authority figures by Jones. The tacit conflict between black and white women over leadership upended the image of socialist egalitarianism the movement attempted to project in public. These kind of politics \u2013 all too real in this era of Clintonian white corporate feminism \u2013 are conspicuously absent from the white gaze of historical fiction.<\/p>\n

In White Nights, Black Paradise, <\/em>Peoples Temple is a space of projection for black women\u2019s dreams, ambitions, and struggles for self-determination in apartheid America. As Robbie Danzie (Zephyr) notes, \u201cThe novel reminds those of us passionately committed to organizations (spiritual or not), that our participation must be based on inquiry and self-study, as opposed to heightened emotion and blind faith or trust stirred by others.\u00a0 Even today, there are those of us roused to action, sometimes tragically, by leaders of churches and\/or political organizations, who’ve become intoxicated by increased money and power.\u201d<\/p>\n

(An article about this film also appeared in the Religion News Service<\/a> on November 17, 2016.)<\/em><\/p>\n

(Sikivu Hutchinson\u2019s book White Nights, Black Paradise<\/a>, which was reviewed by Annie Dawid<\/a> and Rebecca Moore<\/a> in the 2015 edition <\/em>of the jonestown report, was published in November 2015\u00a0and subsequently reviewed by LA Progressive<\/a>, Feminist Newswire<\/a>, Curve Magazine<\/a>, and PR Underground<\/a>. Dr. Hutchinson also discussed her book in an interview<\/a> on the \u201cOff-Ramp\u201d program on KPCC Public Radio in Southern California, and in an interview in Religion Dispatches<\/a>. She also wrote a blog on the 2015 anniversary for The Huffington Post<\/a>. An article that uses her work as a point of departure into a discussion of other groups appears in a November 2015 article in The Atlantic Magazine\u2019s City Lab<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

(Dr. Hutchinson\u2019s previous articles for the jonestown report include On White Negroes, Jim Jones and \u201cSista\u201d Rachel<\/a> and No More White Saviors: Jonestown and Peoples Temple in the Black Feminist Imagination<\/a>. She may be reached at shutch2396@aol.com<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For most people, the story of the 1978 Jonestown massacre is \u201csimple\u201d: a bunch of gullible Kool Aid drinking \u201ccultists\u201d from San Francisco followed a crazy manipulative white man into the jungle \u201cHeart of Darkness\u201d style and were systematically killed in the largest mass murder-suicide in American history. For decades, a succession of Jonestown productions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":67515,"menu_order":17,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-67325","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/67325","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=67325"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/67325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134254,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/67325\/revisions\/134254"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/67515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}