{"id":81312,"date":"2018-09-25T14:16:59","date_gmt":"2018-09-25T21:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=81312"},"modified":"2021-10-21T11:01:24","modified_gmt":"2021-10-21T18:01:24","slug":"living-through-martins-dream","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=81312","title":{"rendered":"Living Through Martin\u2019s Dream"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo courtesy California Historical Society<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s been 40 years since that tragic day in November 1978, the day my family and loved ones were taken away from me, the day my entire world ceased to exist, the day I suffered the worst day of my teenage life.<\/p>\n

Since that day, I have had to learn to live again without those whom I called family. Yes, I know people lose loved ones all the time. They, like I, have to learn to keep living without those loved ones with only the precious memories to sustain them.<\/p>\n

My journey has been one of adjustment to the things I have not been used to.<\/p>\n

Those who know about my Jonestown affiliation always ask me questions like: what is it that you miss the most; what did you hate about being there? \u00a0I tell them, being a teenager at that time, I thought only about missing those things that you are supposed to do in your high school years \u2013 I won\u2019t go to prom; I won\u2019t walk across the stage wearing a cap and gown \u2013 and that\u2019s honesty, because I was a young teen approaching that status in my life, and that\u2019s all I knew that I wouldn\u2019t be able to have.<\/p>\n

We had school in Jonestown, but it wasn\u2019t a regular school like in the States. That\u2019s where my concentration was, that\u2019s what I was thinking the day he first shouted \u201cWhite Night,\u201d that I would never be allowed to do any of those regular high school, teenage activities.<\/p>\n

I am not oblivious to that to this day \u2013 in movies, on television, in comedy routines, even in some everyday conversations \u2013 people make comments about \u201cdrinking the Kool-Aid.\u201d That gets me a little agitated, but I know that most people who use the catchphrase don\u2019t always mean it in a derogatory way. Even those who know the expression came from Jonestown aren\u2019t intentionally using it in a way to make us look stupid. At least, that\u2019s what I want to think.<\/p>\n

I was not in Jonestown that fateful day, but I am still filled with \u201csurvivor\u2019s remorse.\u201d Yet I must keep living. I must continue to write and tell of the good of everyone who were. They were good people, they were proud people, they believed they were standing for a new \u201cfreedom\u201d that was promised to us but never achieved in the States; they had fought and they had shouted and they had hope that their voices had finally been heard, that Jim Jones had delivered the promise of \u201cfreedom\u201d that had been promised to them for so many years. I know, because even at a young age, I was one of them. Our parents who knew the struggle and felt so adamant that Jones had delivered did not hesitate to move to Jonestown and get a piece of that dream.<\/p>\n

There will come a day, I know, when I am no longer physically able to share my story. That\u2019s why I want to let everyone coming along behind me know, that those were people of courage, strength, and most of all, \u201cLOVE.\u201d All they wanted was to be free from oppression.<\/p>\n

They thought they were a part of the \u201cDream,\u201d Martin\u2019s dream, the \u201cDream of Freedom,\u201d the \u201cDream\u201d to live amongst each other of all racial and social backgrounds as one. As I think back, I consider that maybe it was a part of Martin\u2019s \u201cDream,\u201d but not the outcome, that he foretold. In his \u201cDream,\u201d we walked as one, and we lived as one, but unlike Martin\u2019s \u201cdream for equality,\u201d the people of Jonestown died as \u201cOne.\u201d Martin Luther King never professed a \u201crevolutionary suicide,\u201d but my friends, my family, my people will forever be remembered for their courage and their strength to give up their lives for the \u201ccause\u201d for the freedom that they were told would no longer be theirs.<\/p>\n

(Dawn Gardfrey was in Georgetown with her grandmother on November 18, 1978. Her other contribution to this edition of <\/em>the jonestown report\u00a0is Two Poems<\/a>. Her complete set of writings on this site may be found <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>. She can be reached <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been 40 years since that tragic day in November 1978, the day my family and loved ones were taken away from me, the day my entire world ceased to exist, the day I suffered the worst day of my teenage life. Since that day, I have had to learn to live again without those […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":81229,"menu_order":12,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-81312","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/81312","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=81312"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/81312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111809,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/81312\/revisions\/111809"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/81229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}