"Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, is a 2006 documentary film made by Firelight Media, produced and directed by Stanley Nelson. The documentary reveals new footage of the incidents surrounding the Peoples Temple and its leader Jim Jones who led over 900 members of his religious group to a settlement in Guyana called Jonestown, where he orchestrated a mass suicide with poisoned Flavor Aid, in November 1978. It is in the form of a narrative with interviews with former Temple members, Jonestown survivors, and people who knew Jones. The film"
"Jim Jones James Warren Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was an American religious cult leader who, along with his inner circle, initiated and was responsible for a mass suicide and mass murder in Jonestown, Guyana. Jones was the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple cult which he began in Indiana during the 1950s. He was officially ordained in 1956 by the Independent Assemblies of God and in 1964 by the Disciples of Christ. He moved the Temple to California in 1965 and gained notoriety with its activities in San Francisco in the early 1970s. He then"
"Peoples Temple The Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ, commonly shortened to Peoples Temple, was a new religious movement founded in 1955 by Jim Jones in Indianapolis, Indiana. Jones used the Peoples Temple to spread a message that combined elements of Christianity with communist and socialist ideas, as well as an emphasis on racial equality. The Peoples Temple is best known for the events of November 18, 1978 in Guyana, when 918 people died in a mass murder at its remote settlement, named ""Jonestown"", as well as the murders of U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan and members of his visiting"
"drum, an organ, and a bed of daisies growing where the bodies once lay. Mass suicides: Jonestown The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, better known by its informal name ""Jonestown"", was a remote settlement established by the Peoples Temple, an American cult under the leadership of reverend Jim Jones, in north Guyana. It became internationally known when, on November 18, 1978, a total of 918 people died in the settlement, at the nearby airstrip in Port Kaituma, and at a Temple-run building in Georgetown, Guyana's capital city. The name of the settlement became synonymous with the incidents at those locations. In"
"Jonestown The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, better known by its informal name ""Jonestown"", was a remote settlement established by the Peoples Temple, an American cult under the leadership of reverend Jim Jones, in north Guyana. It became internationally known when, on November 18, 1978, a total of 918 people died in the settlement, at the nearby airstrip in Port Kaituma, and at a Temple-run building in Georgetown, Guyana's capital city. The name of the settlement became synonymous with the incidents at those locations. In total, 909 individuals died in Jonestown, all but two from apparent cyanide poisoning, in an event"
"Jon (Kimo) and his mother, Carolyn Louise Moore Layton, both died during the events at Jonestown. Jim Jones James Warren Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was an American religious cult leader who, along with his inner circle, initiated and was responsible for a mass suicide and mass murder in Jonestown, Guyana. Jones was the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple cult which he began in Indiana during the 1950s. He was officially ordained in 1956 by the Independent Assemblies of God and in 1964 by the Disciples of Christ. He moved the Temple to California in"
"delegation in nearby Port Kaituma. The mass killings at Jonestown resulted in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks. The group moved to California in the 1960s and established several locations throughout the state, including its headquarters in San Francisco. At its peak, the Temple boasted 20,000 members (though 3,000–5,000 are more likely) and connections with many left-wing political figures. Before forming a church, Jim Jones had become enamored of communism and frustrated by the harassment communists received in the U.S. This, among other things, provided a clerical"
"observance of their religion in order to free them from the suppositious ""shackles"" of their ""unenlightened"" and ""primitive condition."" Out of thousands of religious groups, a handful have become associated with acts of violence. This includes the Peoples Temple founded by Jim Jones in 1955, which ended in a murder/suicide claiming the lives of 918 people in November, 1978 in Guyana. (See main article: Peoples Temple.) Members of the Peoples Temple who did ""not"" die in the murder/suicide are examples of ""cult survivors,"" and the cult survivor meme has become a popular one. Tabloids such as Britain's ""Daily Mail"" often"
"2008 by Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the November 2015 Paris attacks in November 2015 by ISIL. Certain cults, especially religious cults, have committed a number of mass killings and mass murder-suicides. These include Jim Jones' Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana, where 919 people died in 1978; the Order of the Solar Temple in Canada, Switzerland, and France, where 75 died in 1994, 1995, and 1997; Shoko Asahara's Aum Shinrikyo, which killed 12 in Tokyo, Japan, in 1995; Marshall Applewhite's Heaven's Gate in San Diego, California, where 39 died in 1997; and the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God"
"on the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. On September 11, 2010, Jones announced his church would never be burning Qur'ans and that he had reached his goal of exposing elements of Islam as dangerous and radical. On March 20, 2011, however, Jones carried through on his threat, and burned a Qur'an. On April 1, 2011, protesters in the northern Afghanistan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, protesting at this burning, attacked a United Nations Assistance Mission, killing at least 12 people, including at least 7 U.N. workers. Jones described Islam as a false religion that will lead people to hell, and"
"Assistant District Attorney Timothy Stoen, was found poisoned in Jim Jones's cabin. Sharon Amos, who had earlier led political pamphletting campaigns in San Francisco, murdered her children with a knife and committed suicide at the Temple's Georgetown, Guyana headquarters (150 miles from Jonestown) at the behest of Jones. 412 unclaimed victims are buried at Evergreen Cemetery, in Oakland, as many of the local members of the church had come from Oakland. A memorial plaque with the names of all victims was placed at the site in 2011, which controversially included the name of Jim Jones, the architect of the mass"
"incident were captured on video by Bob Brown, one of the journalists killed in the attack. That evening, in Jonestown, Jones ordered his congregation to drink a concoction of cyanide-laced, grape-flavored Flavor Aid. In all, 918 people died, including 276 children. It was the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until the events of September 11, 2001. This includes four that died at the Temple headquarters in Georgetown that night. The Temple's San Francisco headquarters came under siege by national media and relatives of Jonestown victims. The mass suicide became one of the best-known events"
"which 909 members of the Peoples Temple, an American religious group led by Jim Jones, ended their lives by drinking grape Flavor Aid laced with cyanide and various prescription drugs. Thousands of Japanese civilians took their own lives in the last days of the Battle of Saipan in 1944, some jumping from ""Suicide Cliff"" and ""Banzai Cliff"". The 1981 Irish hunger strikes, led by Bobby Sands, resulted in 10 deaths. The cause of death was recorded by the coroner as ""starvation, self-imposed"" rather than suicide; this was modified to simply ""starvation"" on the death certificates after protest from the dead"
"than submit to what they consider an intolerable oppression sometimes become the focus of a heroic myth. Such mass suicides might also win the grudging respect of the victors. On the other hand, the act of people resorting to mass suicide without being threatened - especially, when driven to this step by a charismatic religious leader, for reasons which often seem obscure - tends to be regarded far more negatively. On November 18, 1978, 918 Americans died in Peoples Temple–related incidents, including 909 members of the Temple, led by Jim Jones, in Jonestown, Guyana. The dead included 276 children. A"
"People's Progressive Party, which was mostly supported by Guyanese of East Indian background. In 1978, Guyana received international notice when 918 members of the American cult, Peoples Temple, died in a mass murder/suicide drinking cyanide-laced Flavor Aid. However, most of the suicides were by Americans and not Guyanese. More than 300 children were killed; the people were members of a group led by Jim Jones in Jonestown, the settlement which they had created. Jim Jones's bodyguards had earlier attacked people taking off at a small remote airstrip close to Jonestown, killing five people, including Leo Ryan, a US congressman. In"
"such as the Black Panthers, the New World Liberation Front, the Black Liberation Army (BLA) and the Venceremos, which spawned the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). In speeches at the Temple, Jones even took responsibility for the bombing of a Vietnam-bound munitions train in Roseville, California. Jones expressed admiration for the SLA after it kidnapped Patricia Hearst and was involved in shootings, and the Temple distributed the Symbionese Declaration among its members. However, he attempted to convince law enforcement officials and the press that he opposed such violence by having members hand deliver a $2,000 check to the Hearst family mansion."
"was an organization founded in 1955 by Reverend James Warren Jones (Jim Jones) that, by the mid-1970s, possessed over a dozen locations in California, including in San Francisco and Los Angeles. When the Peoples Temple expanded its operations into the Bay Area in the 1970s, its staff concentrated on advertising the Temple's bus caravans to attract new converts, including handing out free trinkets. While in 1972, the Temple was still calling its Redwood Valley facility the ""mother church"" of a statewide movement, moving the seat of power to an urban area seemed a strategic necessity. It had held services in"
"Nine people were killed. Brannan was considered the instigator of the incident. In a few accounts of Brannan's dealings with the LDS church it is said that Brigham Young sent the apostle Amasa Lyman to collect the tithing money that Brannan had withheld from the church's institution. When Lyman arrived Brannan was unable to account for the tithes that Brigham Young and other Mormons claimed were given to him or that he owed from his own personal income. He reportedly told them, ""You go back and tell Brigham Young that I'll give up the Lord's money when he sends me"
"the largest such event in modern history and resulted in the largest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until September 11, 2001. The Peoples Temple was formed in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1955. Though its roots and teachings shared more with biblical church and Christian revival movements than with Marxism, it purported to practice what it called ""apostolic socialism"". In doing so, the Temple preached that ""those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment — socialism."" In the early 1960s, Jones visited Guyana – then a British colony – while"
"140 members, half of whom were Black, to Redwood Valley, and officially opened his church there. The addition of deputy district attorney Timothy Stoen greatly increased the Temple's credibility in the area, quickly increasing membership. Jones began deriding traditional Christianity as ""fly away religion,"" and rejected the Bible as white men's justification to dominate women and enslave people of color. He authored a booklet he would distribute in the Temple, ""The Letter Killeth"", pointing out what he felt were the contradictions, absurdities, and atrocities in the Bible, but also stating that the Bible contained great truths. Jones preached that the"
"sex. Notably, Mother S. A. Divine fought an attempt by Jim Jones, the head of Peoples Temple, to take over the movement in 1971. Jones based some of his doctrines on the International Peace Mission movement, and claimed to be the reincarnation of Father Divine. The two battled for years, with Divine sending spies into Jones' Peoples Temple and Jones doing the same to the Peace Mission. Converts to the Peoples Temple wrote Mother Divine trying to convince her that Jones was Father Divine until the infamous mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana in 1978. Mother Divine died on March 4,"
"and feathering, their lands and possessions being repeatedly taken from them, mob attacks, false imprisonments, and the US sending an army to Utah to deal with the ""Mormon problem"" in the Utah War which resulted in the Mormons massacring settlers at the Mountain Meadows Massacre. A government militia slaughtered Mormons in what is now known as the Haun's Mill massacre. The founder of the church, Joseph Smith, was killed in Carthage, Illinois by a mob of about 200 men, almost all of whom were members of the Illinois state militia including some members of the militia who were assigned to"
"James Russell McGregor James Russell McGregor also known as James 3X, James Shabazz, and Son of Thunder, was a leader of the Black Muslims and an associate of Malcolm X. Shabazz was a minister and spiritual leader of thousands of Muslims in Newark and Jersey City and had been a member of the Nation of Islam, or Black Muslims, for more than 30 years. He was murdered in the driveway to his home in September, 1973. Shabazz was originally from Southern Pines, North Carolina and was the father of 13 children. Shabazz was the head of Muslim Mosque No. 25"
"group, which is involved in public demonstrations against the Firearms Control Act. Saint James Church massacre The Saint James Church massacre was a massacre perpetrated on St James Anglican Church in Kenilworth, Cape Town, South Africa, on 25 July 1993 by four members of the Azanian People's Liberation Army (APLA). Eleven members of the congregation were killed and 58 wounded. In 1998 the attackers were granted amnesty for their acts by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.. The attack occurred during the Sunday evening service. Sichumiso Nonxuba, Bassie Mkhumbuzi, Gcinikhaya Makoma and Tobela Mlambisa approached the church, a congregation of the"
"conservative Baptists and form the Progressive National Baptist Convention. He was known for his outspokenness, making controversial statements and being involved in controversial causes in the New York City area. In the 1960s, he was introduced to the preacher Al Sharpton by the Pentecostal minister F. D. Washington. Jones became a mentor to Sharpton and eventually converted him to the Baptist denomination. He had a 5,000-member church in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn and hosted a syndicated weekly radio program called ""Bethany Hour"". In 1979, he published a book entitled ""God in the Ghetto"". Jones is interred at the Lexington"
"James F. Jones (minister) James Francis Marion Jones (November 24, 1907 – August 12, 1971), also known as the Rt. Rev. Dr. James F. Jones, D.D and as Prophet Jones, was a black religious leader, televangelist, faith healer and pastor who led the religious movement that developed into the Church of Universal Triumph, Dominion of God, Inc. from 1938 until his death in 1971. As ""Prophet Jones"", James F. Jones claimed and his followers ascribed to him, divine powers from God as a special premillennial ""incarnation of the spirit of Jesus Christ"". Jones was a contemporary of other religious leaders"
"Muhammad Musri deceived him by saying that the proposed ground zero mosque would be relocated. After the pressure over the ""Burn the Qu'ran"" controversy had died down, Jones established a new organization, ""Stand Up America Now"". On March 20, 2011, Jones officiated as judge over a mock trial operated by Stand Up America Now in which the Qu'ran was found ""guilty"" of a variety of crimes, including ""murder, rape, deception, being responsible for terrorist activities all around the world""; over 30 people attended the event, including Ahmed Abaza and other converts from Islam to Christianity testifying against the book and"
"at a jungle airstrip in Guyana in November 1978. Hours after Mr. Ryan and four others were shot to death at an airstrip near Jonestown, which was the headquarters of the cult, the cult's leader, the Jim Jones, and 912 of his followers died by poison and gunfire in mass killings and suicides. Peckham sentenced Layton to life in prison, as well as to three concurrent terms of 15 years each in related charges. In 1990, the Robert F. Peckham Federal Building Courthouse in San Jose, California was named in Peckham's honor. Robert Francis Peckham Robert Francis Peckham (November 3,"
"Peoples Temple founder Jim Jones. When Jones decided to move his congregation to Jonestown, Guyana, Dymally ""wrote the Guyanese prime minister to reassure him that Jones was an upstanding citizen."" The Jonestown compound would be the site of the mass suicide of over 900 people on November 18, 1978. In the 1990s Dymally served as a paid lobbyist for the country of Mauritania, attempting to present the country as engaged in abolishing every remnant of slavery. Dymally came out of retirement and returned to the California State Assembly in 2002 when Assemblyman Carl Washington was term limited. He served for"
"Jones of the Peoples Temple. He was Jones' personal physician and published his church's newspaper. In November 1978, Jones committed suicide in Guyana with more than 900 followers. Goodlett later said, ""You don't need glasses for hindsight. Everybody is running like hell away from Jim Jones now, but none of us knew at the time."" When he became incapacitated from Parkinson's disease, he continued dictating or writing many of the paper's editorials, holding political meetings in the office, and guiding the direction of his newspapers. ""The black tail is never going to wag the white dog,"" he once said, ""But"
"Rufus Jones (writer) Rufus Matthew Jones (January 25, 1863 – June 16, 1948) was an American religious leader, writer, magazine editor, philosopher, and college professor. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Haverford Emergency Unit (a precursor to the American Friends Service Committee). One of the most influential Quakers of the 20th century, he was a Quaker historian and theologian as well as a philosopher. He is the only person to have delivered two Swarthmore Lectures. Jones was born into an old Quaker family in South China, Maine where he attended services at the Pond Meeting House and then"
"to plunge this country into a terrorist war they've never seen before."" Benjamin Nathaniel Smith Benjamin Nathaniel Smith (March 22, 1978 – July 4, 1999) was an American spree killer and member of the neo-Nazi World Church of the Creator. During the weekend of July 4, 1999, Smith targeted members of racial and ethnic minorities in random drive-by shootings in Illinois and Indiana, after which he committed suicide while attempting to evade capture by the police. Smith was born and raised in Wilmette, Illinois. He attended high school at New Trier Township High School. During this time he accosted a"
"In 1886, at his own expense, he had a large open-air structure called ""The Tabernacle"" built for inter-faith meetings. Until his death in 1906, he held services there each September, bringing to his hometown the co-workers who assisted him in the great revivals he held throughout the country. Meanwhile, Jones raised funds for the Methodist Orphan Home in Decatur, Georgia. He went on to preach not only across the South, but also in New York City, Boston, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Los Angeles and Canada. Over the years, it is estimated that Jones preached to three million Americans. In his sermons,"