It seems certain that, at some level, Jones truly hated racial and economic inequality. As a teenager he preached against such evils in rough Richmond neighborhoods where he stood to gain nothing by it other than insults and beatings. In Indianapolis, Jones fought, often single-handedly, to bring about integration in a highly segregated city, and to a great extent succeeded. Under Jones’s leadership, Peoples Temple acted on the biblical precepts of feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. Temple addiction programs saved lives. Temple scholarship programs educated young men and women whose
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