The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple

by Jeff Guinn

Those as gifted as Jones use actual rather than imagined injustices as their initial lure—the racism and economic disparity in America that Jones cited were, and still are, real—then exaggerate the threat until followers lose any sense of perspective. In Indiana, Jones and Peoples Temple opposed poverty, prejudice, and segregation. In San Francisco, he began warning of American concentration camps for blacks and a coming police state. By the time he and some nine hundred Temple members were in isolated Jonestown, where there were no opposing views to be heard, his warnings escalated to imminent slaughter by U.S. government agents, Guyanese soldiers, and mercenaries—and because they’d been led along in gradual progression, many of his followers believed enough to voluntarily lay down their lives at his command.