The Road to Jonestown

by Jeff Guinn

  Jones emphasized the “us against them” attitude, accusing locals of even more aggressive racism than they actually exhibited. One day Jimmy Jr. came home looking puzzled. He said that someone at his elementary school called him a nigger and asked his father what the word meant. The youngster wasn’t upset, just curious, but Jones exaggerated the moment in a particularly raging Sunday sermon.

  They [sent Jimmy] home crying when they’d spit on him [and used] that word “nigger.” . . . “Niggardly” means to be treated cheatedly. You’ve been cheated. And we know Indians and blacks and poor whites have been cheated, don’t we? But [Jimmy] said that word hurt, so I turned it around in my home, and I made it the proudest word for the chosen people. I said, “Yes, we’re niggers, and we’re proud.” And now we say the word and our children don’t get worried. The [next] time little Jim was called a nigger, he said, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but you’re sure not going to hurt me with that word, because that’s the best word in the world.”

  When Jones declared, “Anyone in America who’s poor—white, brown, yellow, or black—and does not admit that he’s a nigger is a damn fool,” everyone stood and cheered.

  * * *

  New black membership offered the Temple a welcome source of fresh income. Many arriving families included older members. There were also individual seniors who wanted to move to Mendocino County but required daily care. Marceline Jones was currently employed as a state inspector of nursing homes; in Indianapolis, she and her husband had owned and operated facilities. Now, using some of the money brought from Indiana, Peoples Temple acquired residential properties in Ukiah and converted them into church-owned nursing homes. As in Indianapolis, Temple members served as administrators and staff. The care provided to Temple nursing home residents met and exceeded state requirements. Marceline Jones saw to that. Client disability income and Social Security checks more than covered expenses; all profits went to the church. This money was used to fund outreach programs, which in turn attracted more new members to the Temple.

  As African Americans moving north from the Bay Area began to swell Temple membership and coffers, Jones looked for other sources of recruitment. In Indiana, he had never bothered attending annual conventions and other gatherings of Disciples of Christ administrators and ministers. Now in California, he went to all that he could, and even made presentations about Peoples Temple and some of the new programs it was establishing in Mendocino County. These included encouraging teens to stay away from drugs and marriage counseling. Jones invited ministers from other Disciples churches to come and visit. When they did, they were amazed by the Temple’s mixed-race congregation and struck by Jones’s emphasis on community service. His sermons when such visitors were present always focused on outreach rather than racial resentment. Many Disciples ministers were impressed enough to refer their own troubled congregants to Peoples Temple and its programs. Those that came enjoyed a carefully orchestrated reception, usually at a Sunday morning service. As soon as their cars pulled into the Redwood Valley church parking lot, visitors were individually greeted by Temple members, who began testifying about the powers and good works of Jim Jones. Their descriptions were vivid—cancers removed, dead people revived, near-fatal drug addictions miraculously cured. Then the newcomers were ushered inside and directed to reserved seats in the front rows. Temple members walked over to chat, asking apparently innocuous questions, often giving hugs before stepping aside so that others could briefly visit. There was singing from an adult choir, and more songs from Temple children, black and white youngsters walking hand in hand, all of them smiling.

  When Jones finally appeared, there were testimonials to his grace and power. Each person was gently asked to limit remarks to three minutes, because so many wanted to praise Father Jim. After that, Jones might announce a miracle or two, generally something that couldn’t be disproven: someone had been fated to die in a car wreck the next morning, but because he’d come to Peoples Temple that day and believed all he’d heard there, he’d be spared. This was a plant, who’d rise up in tears to thank Jones for saving his life. Visitors taking that kind of pronouncement for hokum were often astonished when Jones next directly addressed them, by name and often describing something in their lives—an ill, elderly relative, a car that kept breaking down—that seemed impossible for him to know anything about. Few realized that the chatty Temple members visiting with them prior to the service, usually Patty Cartmell and others experienced in assisting Jones’s public performances, scrawled notes with information they’d learned and passed these along to him before he came out to preach. Jones would assure them that Granny’s bladder problems were about to get better, or that the family car was going to start running perfectly. If that didn’t turn out to be the case, come and tell him, because he and everybody in the Temple cared about these problems and wanted to help.

  Jones’s lengthy sermons surprised many guests, particularly white visitors accustomed to short Sunday messages. By the time the Sunday morning service was over, it would always be well into the afternoon and everyone was hungry. Jones sent them to tables set up behind the church building, where Temple women served a hearty meal. Members sat with guests, talking more, asking what they thought of the service, seeming especially sympathetic and attentive if anyone mentioned something bothersome—maybe a problem with Jones criticizing the Bible, or the impression that the pastor sounded like a communist, the way he insisted that everybody should share everything equally.

  After plates were cleared, visitors were thanked for coming, and invited to stay for the evening meeting if they liked. Few did—they were exhausted from the earlier marathon. Jones would make some farewell remarks, emphasizing that they were welcome to come back whenever they liked. There was minimal vetting. Only a year earlier, Temple membership had almost dwindled away, and had to be built back up. For now, Jones cared more about numbers than compatible philosophy.

  Some of the visitors had no further contact with the Temple. They made it clear to their hosts that it wasn’t for them. But those who’d shown even a glimmer of interest received calls and letters asking them to return. There were packages, too—homemade cookies or other treats, tokens of the Temple membership’s regard, and indicative of their hopes to welcome recipients into their loving church.

  Those who made a second visit usually had some private conversation with Jones. Thoroughly briefed by confederates before the meeting, he would know exactly what to say to each, speaking directly to any concerns they might have. His powers of persuasion remained exceptional. By the end of 1969, about five hundred people regularly attended Peoples Temple, more than three times the membership of a year earlier.

  For a time, Jones felt secure enough to allow a few disillusioned current members to leave. Through intermediaries, he even encouraged their departure. Garry Lambrev had joined Peoples Temple in the belief that Jones was something more than human, and that the Temple would exemplify the right way for America to function. Some of Jones’s machinations troubled him, and it showed. Jim Pugh, one of Jones’s most ardent supporters, told Lambrev, “Garry, we know you’re not comfortable. We need people who can really make a commitment.” Lambrev left for a while, but stayed in touch with Temple friends. After a few months he was back, beginning a series of departures and returns that went on for several years. The lure of good Temple works in spite of its leader’s flaws kept drawing Lambrev back.

  * * *

  For the present, those flaws didn’t endanger Peoples Temple, or lessen most members’ certainty that their pastor was above reproach. A few loyalists knew that the miracle healings were faked. Some also doubted Jones’s insistence that he was, in some way or another, godlike. Anyone even remotely close to Jones realized he was obsessed with control, and could not bear to delegate any real authority. But to them, what mattered more was all the good that was being accomplished through Jones’s leadership. It was his vision and apparently limitless energy that drove the Temple forward, i
n a time and place where its shining example was so unlikely, and so badly needed.

  But if 1969 was the year of the Temple’s rebirth, it was also the year when Jim Jones’s personal failings and delusions, previously peripheral to his good works, began manifesting themselves in more overt ways that escalated for almost a decade until he brought himself down, and Peoples Temple along with him. Eventually Jones betrayed everyone who followed him. He began during the summer of 1969 by betraying his wife.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CAROLYN

  In the summer of 1969, Jim and Marceline Jones had been married for twenty years. Partners inevitably grow and change in two decades of marriage, but for the Joneses, those changes were extreme. At twenty-two, Marceline was eager to experience life outside her Indiana hometown, and the ambitious goals of eighteen-year-old Jim Jones appealed to her own religious beliefs, which were rooted in a hands-on approach. Marceline had no patience with passive Christianity. Her niece Janet L. Jackson remembers, “One time when she and Stephan were visiting here [in Richmond], there was a revival meeting and we went. Whoever was leading [the revival] was talking all about, ‘Praise Jesus,’ and Aunt Marceline comes up and says, ‘Give me the microphone.’ And she takes the microphone and says, ‘You know, all this is good, praising God and everything, but you also have to get out there and do things. You can’t just sit on the sidelines and praise Jesus.’ Then she handed the microphone back.”

  Gradually, Jones won his wife over to what she once would have considered radical ideals. Marceline would never have believed herself to be a racist, but she came to her marriage with little real understanding of the plight of American blacks. Through her husband’s ministry, Marceline became committed to racial equality. She also accepted some of his other beliefs, in particular the possibility of reincarnation and the inconsistencies of the Bible. Marceline knew Jim Jones too well ever to think of him as God or the returned Christ, but she did agree that he had powers which transcended normal human limits. At some point Marceline discovered that most, if not all, of his healings and prophecies were stage-managed. She accepted the deception, to the point where she would eventually claim that her husband miraculously cured her of cancer.

  Away from the public eye, Jones was frequently coarse and self-centered, often as thoughtless with his wife as he was thoughtful to the oppressed he sought to serve. But Marceline was firmly convinced that her husband was still in most respects a godly man, and one whose great gifts were desperately needed by the rest of the world. She, more than anyone else, could help him most because she understood him best. Any difficulty Marceline had living with the emotionally erratic Jones was more than compensated for by the good things they accomplished together. He needed her; they really were a team. Marceline took satisfaction in her own contributions to the cause. Avelyn Chilcoate remembers, “All of Marceline’s family felt like she and Jim had made good, and Marceline was proud and happy, too.”

  There was one hiccup, an intimate problem. From childhood, Marceline dealt with chronic back pain, which doctors occasionally treated with traction. Sometimes, too much physical activity confined her to bed. She tried not to let it limit her, bearing discomfort stoically. But carrying and then delivering Stephan took its toll, and, as Marceline delicately phrased it to her mother, for some time afterward she and Jones were not able to “live as husband and wife.” The Joneses regretted, but accepted, that there could never be another pregnancy. Eventually they resumed their sex life, but apparently on a careful, limited basis.

  * * *

  In Indianapolis, Marceline had been Jim’s chief conduit with public officials. She knew how to approach them, how to make the Temple seem like a welcome partner rather than a demanding, impractical adversary, and Jim didn’t. But he was always a quick learner, able to absorb anything useful. Jones had little interest in anything that didn’t advance his ministry. In California, using what he’d learned from his wife in Indiana, Jones no longer relied on her for political advice. He went by himself to meet with mayors, judges, and city council members, or else took along other Temple members but not her.

  As Marceline’s role as a political advisor to her husband diminished, she compensated by having even more interaction with Temple members. Jones’s pronouncements from the pulpit often upset some listeners, and his rants about antagonistic locals deliberately added to a collective sense of paranoia. Marceline didn’t openly disagree with her husband; in many instances, she thought that what he said was right, if tactlessly expressed. Her new, crucial Temple role was as a buffer, taking responsibility for soothing the concerns or ruffled feelings that Jones frequently caused. Where he expected obedience, Marceline thanked members for the ways in which they participated. If it came to his attention that some assigned task hadn’t been done right, Jones was critical. Though she also expected the best of everyone, Marceline preferred explaining how to correct mistakes rather than reprimanding members.

  For all his egotism, Jones recognized Marceline’s value to his ministry. Many Temple members called him “Father,” but they also addressed Marceline as “Mother.” In the dark days after Robert Kennedy’s assassination and Judge Winslow’s defeat, Jones decreed in a handwritten document that in the event of his own demise, Marceline Jones would “be my successor as pastor, president of Peoples Temple Nonprofit Inc., and spiritual leader of Peoples Temple in all matters.” Secular Temple matters, fund-raising, and property acquisitions, and establishing outreach programs would be directed by the Temple’s Board of Elders. But Jones instructed that “Marceline Jones is to be consulted in all church decisions for in her their [sic] is absolute integrity.” All this meant very little—Jim Jones had no intention of going anywhere, let alone dying, and even in that unlikely scenario he’d made it clear she was not to enjoy the same autonomy that he did.

  Marceline found solace in her children. As in all families, things didn’t always run smoothly. Agnes, whom the Joneses adopted at age eleven in Indianapolis, was a restless spirit. As a teenager, she caused her parents considerable anguish by taking up with a series of unsuitable men. When the rest of the family moved to Brazil, Agnes stayed behind in Indiana. She eventually made her own way out to California, where she stayed in touch with her parents while entering into additional bad relationships. Those familiar with the situation thought Agnes wanted to please her parents but never could—her balky, independent personality didn’t allow her to conform to their expectations. When the Rainbow Family was featured in appearances, interviews, and photographs, Agnes was not included.

  Suzanne, who in 1969 was seventeen, had a touchy relationship with her mother. Since Marceline was away on job-related trips so much, Suzanne was expected to help keep her younger siblings in line. She did so effectively—among the Jones kids, it was accepted that their big sister was the boss—but often resented the responsibility. Thirteen-year-old Lew was an exceptional athlete, friendly but always more of a follower than a leader. Stephan, ten, felt considerable pressure as the only biological son of Jim Jones. It was widely assumed by Temple membership that Stephan was Jones’s real heir apparent—if the Joneses were the royal family of Peoples Temple, then Stephan was crown prince. Intelligent and intuitive, he understood his position and sometimes abused it with bad behavior. Jimmy, nine, was outgoing and funny, everybody’s favorite. He was also the child most often shown off to outsiders by Jones as proof of his adoptive father’s solidarity with blacks.

  Marceline tried diligently to offer her children affection and attention. She would go to great lengths to make them feel not only loved, but also special to her in individual ways. Jim Jones Jr. remembers that once in Redwood Valley “I tried to play the race card on my parents. We argued about something and I said they didn’t love me because I was black and they were white. There was a tree outside our house and I ran outside and climbed up into the tree. My mother came out to the tree; she was crying and she had smeared soot all over her face. She called up, ‘Now am I black enough
for you to love me?’ ”

  During the summer of 1969, Marceline’s back gave out completely. Sometimes she was confined to bed and kept in traction. Pain and boredom left her fretful and uncharacteristically snappish with her husband. There was nothing Jones could do about his wife’s physical discomfort, but he could have been more attentive than usual to make Marceline’s convalescence less aggravating. Instead, he concerned himself with his own gratification. Jones was obsessed with sex, and had been since childhood. As a teenager, he’d seen his mother—by far the most dominant adult influence in his life—openly enter into a long-term love affair when her ailing husband was no longer able to engage in sex with her. By 1969, Marceline’s physical frailties had already curtailed Jones’s marital sex life for a decade, and now his wife was unavailable for an extended period, perhaps permanently. No evidence has been found that Jones previously strayed, but now, surrounded by a growing number of adoring female followers, many of whom believed he was in some sense God on Earth, he took a mistress. Virtually any female in the Temple could have been his for the asking, but Jones selected perhaps the most unlikely woman of all.

  * * *

  Twenty-four-year-old Carolyn Moore Layton was physically unprepossessing, very lean, almost always taciturn, her long dark hair usually caught up in a tight bun. To most, her attitude seemed as forbidding as her looks. Former Temple member Laura Johnston Kohl wrote later, “Carolyn reminded me of the woman in the American Gothic painting by Grant Wood . . . that grim Pentecostal essence.” But in many ways, Carolyn’s background perfectly prepared her for membership in Peoples Temple. John V. Moore, her father, was a pastor and district superintendent in the Methodist church who gained prominence for his liberal preaching. Reverend Moore, like Marceline Jones, believed in participative rather than passive Christianity. He and his wife, Barbara, raised their daughters, Carolyn, Rebecca, and Annie, to be socially conscious and to act on their beliefs. The Moores participated in antiwar demonstrations, civil rights marches, and boycotts supporting the rights of farmworkers, taking pains to keep their children involved with, rather than separate from, the oppressed people his ministry strived to serve. When Reverend Moore pastored a church in Youngstown, Ohio, Carolyn was placed in a nursery school where she was the only white child. Eventually, Moore’s assignments brought him and his family to California.