Blakey defection and, 168, 171
Jonestown visits of, 90–91, 127, 168
McElvane, Jim, 207, 209, 210, 223–24, 228, 230, 236
McKnight, Rose, 123–24
Malcolm X, 27
Mann, Laurence “Bonny,” 82–83, 84, 101, 115, 143, 194, 245
Marshall, Thurgood, 16
Marx, Karl, 24
Matthew, Book of, 7, 30
Matthew’s Ridge, Guyana, 106, 109, 186, 187, 205, 216
Mazor, Joseph A., 191–92, 193
Medical Amateur Radio Council (MARCO), 145
Mercer family, 49–50
Methodists, 5
Milk, Harvey, 33, 55
Miller, Christine, 227–28
Mingo, Vibert, 101, 197, 206
Moore, Ann, 121, 236
Mootoo, Leslie, 236
Moscone, George, 33, 51, 55
Moses, 32
Moton, Russ, 204
Mueller, Esther, 154
Murral, Luna, 106, 187, 217
Nascimento, Kit, 94
Nash, Ogden, 134
National Enquirer, 172, 193–94, 206, 208, 209
Native Americans, see Amerindians
NBC, 201, 206, 208, 211, 212, 214, 218, 219, 220, 221
Newsweek, 238
Newton, Huey, 22, 44–45, 100, 102, 225
New West, 52–53, 54–55, 75, 84, 87, 91
New York Times, 245
Night and Fog, 178
“Nine Places in the World to Hide,” 14
No Blade of Grass, 178
Oakland, Calif., 21, 22, 133
Hutton’s killing in, 44–45
Jonestown mass grave in, 239, 249
O’Day, Anita, 119
Office of Strategic Services (OSS), 30
O’Hair, Madalyn Murray, 36
Oliver, Beverly, 116, 120, 164, 206, 208, 210, 218
Oliver, Bruce, 116
Oliver, Howard, 116, 120, 164, 206
Oliver, William, 116
O’Neil, Chris, 240–41
Orsot, Bea, 175
Panama Canal Treaty (1978), 93
Parks, Brenda, 240–41
Parks, Dale, 221, 222
Parks, Edith, 214, 215
Parks, Jerry, 15–16, 214
Parks, Joyce, 146, 176–77
Parks, Patty, 221
Parks, Rosa, 12
Parks, Tracy, 221, 222, 240–41
Parks family, 214, 218, 226
Partak, Tom, 123
Paul, Robert, 229
Paul, Robert, Jr., 229
Paul, Ruletta, 229
Paul, Saint, 7, 24, 155 Pawnbroker, The, 178
Pentecostalism, 5–6, 7 Peoples Forum, 117
Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church:
African Americans and, 11, 32, 50, 128, 133, 137, 174
angels (assassins) of, 99, 114, 235, 244
black women as largest demographic of, 11
Blakey’s defection from, 168–69, 171
Bogue’s disenchantment with, 63–66, 68
Buford’s defection from, 195–96
bus crusades of, 19–20, 51
child abuse and, 41–42, 55, 65, 71, 72, 75–76, 88, 141–42
communalism in, 37–38, 40, 41, 43, 48–51, 56, 78–79, 84, 103, 117, 119, 131–33, 155
Congressional letter from, 163, 164, 166
defections from, 42–45, 54–55, 84, 85, 89, 92, 99, 103–4, 114, 121, 168–69, 171, 175, 195–96, 197, 200, 201
diversions department of, 85
druggings and poisonings by, 25–26, 40, 104, 175–77, 198, 212–13, 223
false confessions required by members of, 63–65, 83–84, 114
formation of, 7
growth of, 26
Indianapolis and, 7, 8–13, 14, 39, 129
Los Angeles church of, 26, 33, 37, 43
media coverage of, 51–55, 75, 77, 83, 84, 87, 89, 90, 91, 116, 117, 119, 121, 143, 147, 148, 164–65, 172, 193–94, 203, 206, 207, 208, 209, 211, 212, 213, 214, 218, 219, 220, 221, 238, 245
planning commission of, 26, 35, 44–46, 66, 149, 157
Redwood Valley and, 15–22, 27, 28, 31, 34, 40, 41, 46, 50, 54, 62–63, 144, 182
San Francisco and, xi, 20–22, 28, 31–38, 42–46, 48–58, 116–19, 202, 236, 238, 244
secretive nature of, 33–34, 36, 52
Stoen’s defection from, 85, 89
violence and, 41–42, 49, 55, 65, 71, 72, 75–76, 87, 111–12, 116, 140, 153, 160, 179
white leadership of, 50, 174
Wise’s defection from, 43–44
see also Jones, James Warren “Jim”; Jonestown, Guyana; Jonestown massacre (November 18, 1978)
Perkins, Irvin, 149
Peter, Saint, 7
Pinochet Ugarte, Augusto, 178
Port Kaituma, Guyana, 3, 69, 89, 90, 91, 94, 95, 109, 154, 185, 196, 202, 207, 209, 212, 213, 222, 240, 241, 243, 244, 246
Postal Service, U.S., 96
Prokes, Mike, 54, 77, 244, 245
Psychotropic Substances Act (1978), 176
QSL cards, 162–63
Quakers, 5
Question, The, 178–79
Reagan, Ronald W., 18, 36
Redwood Valley, Calif., 15–22, 27,
28, 31, 34, 40, 41, 46, 50, 54, 62–63, 144, 182
Reece, Dennis, 202
Reid, Ptolemy, 85, 93, 101, 103
revolutionary suicide, Jones and, 44–45, 97, 98, 99, 100–101, 102, 107, 121–22, 126–27, 148, 169–70, 185, 194, 224–25, 227, 232
Revolutionary Suicide (Newton), 44–45, 100
Rhodes, Odell, 242–43, 244
Richartz, Pat, 100
Richmond, Ind., 6
Rise of the Colored Races, The (Irvine), 117
Roberts, C. A. “Skip,” 91, 171
Robertson, Pat, 7
Robinson, Greg, 208, 221
Roller, Dorothy, 35–36, 119
Roller, Edith Frances, 29–31, 35–38, 43, 48–49, 77–78, 116–19
atheism of, 36
background of, 30
Bechtel and, 29, 36, 117, 118, 134, 182
death of, 231–32, 239
Freed visit and, 191
Jones’s faith healing of, 31
Jonestown and, 130–35, 136–39, 141, 142, 148, 150, 151–52, 167, 169–70, 179–83, 191, 194, 225–26, 231–32, 239
Jonestown massacre and, 225–26, 231–32, 239
journal kept by, 37, 42, 47, 48, 78, 117, 118, 131, 133, 134, 135, 137, 141, 142, 148, 151, 152, 169–70, 179–81, 191, 225–26
suicide drill and, 150, 151–52
Roller, Edna, 119
Roller, Mabs, 36, 118
Rosas, Kay, 141
Rotary Club, 193
Rozynko, Michael, 96
Ruggiero, Liz, 178
Runnels, Julie Ann, 231
Ryan, Leo, 92, 200–203, 204, 224, 245
assassination of, 221, 228, 238, 245
Harris interview of, 220
Jonestown trip of, 206–22
Sly’s knife assault on, 219
San Francisco, Calif.:
Fillmore auditorium in, 32
Peoples Temple and, xi, 20–22, 28, 31–38, 42–46, 48–58, 116–19, 202, 236, 238, 244
San Francisco Chronicle, 31, 51–52, 54, 193, 203, 206, 208
San Francisco Examiner, 53–54, 193, 206, 208
San Francisco Housing Authority, 33, 51–53
San Francisco magazine, 52
San Francisco State College, 30–31, 132
Santa Rosa Press Democrat, 165
Schacht, Daniel, 144
Schacht, Lawrence Eugene “Larry,” 115, 122, 156, 165, 174, 197
background of, 144
Chaikin drugging and, 104, 212–13
drug use of, 145, 203
Janice Johnson and, 160
Jones’s drug use and, 144
Jonestown massacre and, 227, 229, 233, 238, 242
mass murder planning and, 145–46, 172–73, 199, 203
t
win birth fraud and, 143–44
Scheeres, David, xi, xii
“Second Coming, The” (Yeats), 183
segregation, 6–7
Senate, U.S., 179
Shakespeare, William, 134, 151
Shultz, George P., 36
Simon, Alvin, 185–87, 205, 215, 216, 218, 226
Simon, Alvin, Jr., 186, 215, 218
Simon, Bonnie, 186, 218, 226
Simon, Crystal, 186
Simon, José, 215, 218
Simon, Summer, 186
slash-and-burn agriculture, 67
slavery, 155
Sly, Don, 219, 224
Sly, Mark, 42
Smith, Shirley, 226
Snell, Helen, 174
Social Security Administration, U.S., 96, 127
Somerset Methodist Church, 6
Soviet Union, 14, 15, 136, 148, 169, 171, 194–95, 196–97
Speier, Jackie, 208, 209, 210, 212, 215, 217, 219, 220, 221, 246
State Department, U.S., 90–91, 115, 127, 130, 136–37, 168, 171, 200, 201, 202, 206, 207, 208, 235, 245–46
Stoen, Grace, 83–86, 89, 90, 92, 93, 114, 118, 125, 126, 147, 164, 175, 206, 208
Stoen, John Victor, 83–86, 89, 90, 92–93, 94, 97–98, 125–27, 200, 211, 236
Stoen, Tim, 34, 43, 50, 53, 114, 164, 169, 172, 191, 193, 194, 206, 208
defection of, 85, 89
Jones’s custody battle and, 83–86, 89, 90, 92–99, 101, 118, 125–27, 147, 200, 211
Sung, Steve, 208
Supreme Court, U.S., 16
Synanon, 54
Talley, Ron, 129
Talley, Vera, 120
televangelism, 8
Thrash, Hyacinth, 8–10, 20, 246, 247
California move and, 14, 15–18
death of, 247
Jones’s faith healing of, 13
Jonestown and, 87–88, 95, 136–37, 142, 153–56, 184–85, 204, 225
Jonestown massacre and, 225, 241–43
suicide drill and, 153
Temple commune and, 49–51
U.S. embassy interview of, 136–37
Time, 238
Timofeyev, Timor, 195, 196–97
To the Finland Station (Wilson), 37
Touchette, Albert, 61
Touchette, Charlie, 61, 159
Touchette, Joyce, 61, 125, 204, 227
Touchette, Mike, 61
Touchette family, 60–61, 68, 69, 73, 75–76, 80
Tropp, Dick, 98, 194, 236
death note of, 237–38
Tropp, Harriet, 92, 97, 98, 166, 171, 174, 178, 209
Truss, Dana, 142
Tschetter, Alfred, 17
Tschetter, Mary, 17
Tucker, Alleane, 177
Tumminia, Frank, 136
Uganda, 98
Ukiah, Calif., 16, 17, 18, 22, 34, 62, 65, 82, 172
Ukiah Journal, 18
“Ukiah Welcomes New Citizens to Community,” 16
United Nations (UN), 67
United States of America, Cold War and, 14–15
Venezuela, 60, 108, 110, 111, 195
Vietnam War, 30
Vilchez, Jordan, 147, 177
Voice of America, 129
Wagner, Inez, 104
Washington, Eddie, 135, 151, 231
Washington Post, 206, 207, 208, 213
Washington Star, 143, 147
Weinberger, Caspar, 36, 118
Wells, Brian, 53
white nights, 93, 99, 165, 170, 178, 215, 231
Williams, Yulanda, 114, 163, 200
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, 214
Wills, Fred, 82, 125
Wilson, Edmund, 37
Wilson, Joe, 209, 220
Wilson, Leslie, 216, 220
Wise, David, 27, 43
women’s liberation movement, 40
World War II, 30, 32
Wright, Rosalie, 53, 55
Yeats, William Butler, 183
Young, Guy, 33–34, 35, 40, 46,
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Julia Scheeres is the author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Jesus Land. She lives in Berkeley, California, with her husband and two daughters and is a member of the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto.
Jones purchased this building at 1502 N. New Jersey Street in Indianapolis in 1956 and described it as a church whose “door is open so wide that all races, creeds, and colors find a hearty welcome to come in, relax, meditate, and worship God.” (Roger Stacy)
Jim Jones in 1971, about forty-years-old, at the height of his faith-healing crusade. That same year he purportedly fathered a child with a married congregant named Grace Stoen. (©Indiana Star)
Jones working the pulpit at his church in Los Angeles, wearing his trademark sunglasses. By the mid-seventies, he denied the existence of a Christian god altogether. (California Historical Society [CHS])
Jones with Temple children. A dimple in the negative created what he claimed was the white “aura of love” radiating from his heart to the girl on his right side. The image was a bestseller among Temple members. Seven of these children died in Jonestown. (Al Mills)
Jones bought this former Masonic temple at 1859 Geary Boulevard in San Francisco in 1972. Many Temple members lived in warrenlike cubicles on the upper floors or slept in the sanctuary, while Jones’s family lived in an apartment on the third floor. Today a U.S. Post Office occupies the lot. (CHS)
Jones poses next to fruit supposedly grown in Jonestown—as well as the bag the fruit was purchased in. Although billed as a model agricultural cooperative, the settlement would never be self-sufficient. (CHS)
A staged photo of a cottage interior in Jonestown. To lure as many of his followers to Guyana as possible, Jones used videos and photographs to depict the settlement as the land of plenty. (CHS)
Dr. Larry Schacht examines an infant in Jonestown. When Schacht wasn’t delivering babies or tending to sick residents, he was busy trying to find a way to kill off the entire population of Jonestown. (CHS)
Gene Chaikin, a lawyer originally from Los Angeles, left Guyana when he realized Jones was mentally unstable, but the Temple leader refused to let Chaikin’s children leave Jonestown, so he was forced to return to the settlement. (CHS)
Jim Bogue immigrated to Guyana in 1974 along with a small group of pioneers and was quickly named farm manager. He hoped living in the community would help his faltering marriage. (CHS)
The Simon family in Jonestown: (left to right) Jose Simon, Al Jr., Crystal, Al, Bonnie, and Summer. Al and his father were Pomo Indians, and this photo was used in a Temple brochure to demonstrate the racial inclusiveness of the settlement. (CHS)
Edith Roller was one of many college-educated progressives who were drawn to the Temple’s stated mission of furthering racial, social, and sexual equality. (CHS)
The Temple became family to Stanley Clayton, a rage-filled seventeen-year-old from a broken family in Oakland. A Temple member who worked as a probation officer negotiated an early release from jail for him, and he lived in the church sanctuary. (CHS)
Brian Davis, Tommy Bogue’s best friend. The two boys tried to escape Jonestown together a year before the massacre, but were captured by Jones’s security guards. (CHS)
Hyacinth Thrash and her sister Zipporah Edwards first heard of Jim Jones in Indianapolis when they saw his integrated choir perform on television in 1955. They followed him to California and then to Guyana. (CHS)
Tommy Bogue (back row, left) was sent down to Jonestown in July 1976 to “straighten him out.” He enjoyed the experience until Jones moved down a year later, bringing with him an air of gloom and doom that would affect the entire community. (CHS)
Infants in the Jonestown nursery. The day before the massacre, Marceline Jones would tell reporters that thirty-three babies were born in the settlement. None of the babies in this picture survived. (CHS)
Sharon Amos worked with Jones’s public relations crew in the capital of Guyana, where she kept a finger on the pulse of official opinio
n toward the church. (CHS)
Jonestown as seen from the air. The two long school tents are next to the pavilion at the community’s center. The thick jungle surrounding the settlement deterred many residents from trying to flee. (FBI)
Troublemakers— residents who tried to escape or didn’t toe the line—were injected with tranquilizers and confined to the “Special Care Unit.” (FBI)
The northwestern region of Guyana where Jonestown was located was alternately scorched by droughts and drenched by rainstorms, making crop production a challenge. Here, Jones joins a bucket brigade. (CHS)
Women prepare eggplant in the communal kitchen. The amount and quality of food in Jonestown steadily declined during the last year, and toward the end most meals consisted of rice and watery gravy. Most residents lost tremendous amounts of weight. (CHS)
Congressman Leo Ryan poses with members of the Houston family the day before the massacre. The girls’ grandfather asked Ryan to investigate whether Temple members were being held against their will in Guyana. (FBI)
Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation collected some 50,000 pieces of paper and 1,000 audiotapes from the colony after the massacre to try and determine whether there was a conspiracy to assassinate Congressman Leo Ryan. (FBI)
Christine Miller was the only dissenting voice heard on a tape Jones recorded during the mass murder-suicide. “I think we all have a right to our own destiny as individuals,” she told Jones. Her objections were shouted down by other Temple members. (CHS)
JESUS LAND
A Memoir
by
Julia Scheeres
Counterpoint
Description:
Julia and her adopted brother, David, are sixteen years old. Julia is white. David is black. It is the mid-1980s, and their family has just moved to rural Indiana, a landscape of cottonwood trees, trailer parks, and an all-encompassing racism. At home are a distant mother–more involved with her church’s missionaries than her own children–and a violent father. In this riveting and heartrending memoir Julia Scheeres takes us from the Midwest to a place beyond imagining: surrounded by natural beauty, the Escuela Caribe–a religious reform school in the Dominican Republic–is characterized by a disciplinary regime that extracts repentance from its students by any means necessary. Julia and David strive to make it through these ordeals and their tale is relayed here with startling immediacy, extreme candor, and wry humor.
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