In the 1950s, Jim Jones started an independent congregation in Indianapolis; his goal was to fight racism and poverty. In the 1960s, he started a church called the Peoples Temple, and in 1964, Jones became an ordained minister. In 1965, he told his congregation there would be a nuclear holocaust and moved them to Ukiah, California. In California, Jones started medical programs, drug rehabilitation programs, a free dining service, and several other programs to help those in need. Peoples Temple brought in a diverse group of followers, mainly African Americans and young people. Jones portrayed himself as a prophet; he would perform “cancer healings” and focused on those less fortunate.

In 1977, Jones and roughly 1,000 members moved to Guyana, where he established a settlement called Jonestown. The members of Peoples Temple moved to Jonestown in hopes of finding paradise and escaping the racism in the United States, however, that is not what they achieved “Instead, they found something that resembled a concentration camp in which they worked long hours with little food and much abuse, those who escarped Jonestown have reported” (Dittmann, 2003).

A year after they had been at Jonestown on November 18, 1978, California Congressman Leo Ryan and a group of journalists visited Jonestown. When they were leaving, embers of Peoples Temple shot them down at the airstrip; those killed included Congressman Ryan, three journalists, and a member of the church who wanted to leave.

Dittmann, M. (2003, November). Lessons from Jonestown. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/monitor/nov03/jonestown.