Thread by @Sikamikanico

Hey guys. Saw a tweet referring to Jim Jones' followers - the ones who died at Jonestown - as brainwashed zombies. It's so far from the truth, which like everything in life is far more complicated. You have to look at the full story.

So here it is: why everything you know about Jonestown is wrong (and you should never joke about "drinking the kool aid"). Strap in, it's going to be a long one. 2/

Why do this? Because almost everyone who died at Jonestown was a good person working hard for a better, more equal future. They deserve better than the racism and slurs which have tainted the discourse of their lives and deaths for 40 years 3/

Jonestown was only the final year - the final day - in a story of People's Temple which stretches back over 20 years, across the US and South America. So we have to learn a little bit of the history. 4/

Jim Jones, then in his 20s, started his preaching career in the Disciples of Christ Church in Indiana in the 50s. From the beginning he stood out: he preached the socialist gospel and a racially integrated church - unheard of in the Midwest at the time. 5/

There was much local opposition to the church. Eventually in the 1960s he decided to move the church to a more conducive location in northern California. Several dozen loyal followers made the trip with him. Some of these families were there till the end. 6/

In Ukiah, California, People's Temple set up as more than a mere church: they ran aged care and day care facilities, group homes for foster children and communal living. There were crops, a community centre and pool. 7/

At some stage in the 1960s Jim Jones visited South America for some years. We don't know exactly where he went, but he'd read an article on the safest places in the event of a nuclear attack. He visited locales in Brazil and at some stage Guyana. 8/

Back in California, Jones grew restless. He had bigger ambitions for People's Temple than Ukiah. In the early 1970s he moved People's Temple to San Francisco, and established a satellite church in Los Angeles. This is when People's Temple really took off. 9/

Jones preached from the Bible, but also a message of total equality: shared wealth and resources, no racism, no sexism. Not just for a small group, but for larger society. In the fraught America of the 1970s, it was a message that appealed. 10/

It's important to remember Jones was no Charles Manson. He was not a scruffy ex con speaking of portals in the desert. He was an educated, articulate, extremely charismatic man. This is not a defence of Jones, as I'll get to. 11/

People's Temple held several weekly services, members travelling between SF and LA on buses the church owned. They also began cross country trips where Jones would preach, recruiting members to come to California and join the social living. Membership soared. 12/

Jim Jones offered something for everyone. To young educated whites, he offered a chance to join work for the betterment of humanity. For elderly black women in the south, he offered the revivalist preaching they were used to - and a chance to avoid lonely old age. 13/

Many people signed over their houses and life savings to join and live communally with People's Temple in California. Numbers are disputed, but by the mid 1970s the church had at least several thousand members - and had accumulated great wealth.

Jones gave thundering sermons and performed faith healings. But not all members were there for the religion. Many atheists and agnostics joined for the chance to be part of the project. People's Temple offered shelter, medical care, counselling, aged and child care, detox 14/

Most of the members by this stage were urban African Americans from a Christian background. Everyone shared the belief in re-distribution of wealth, racial equality, and a belief a better society was possible. 15/

Okay I've lost a couple of numbers.

In 1974, a small group of Temple faithful travelled to Guyana to establish the People's Temple agricultural project. It was imagined that eventually this would be a place for temple members to live in a purely communal society away from the violence and racism of the US 16/

So... We get to the bad stuff. The Church took care of its own. The good and the bad. The church had strict rules for members - no drugs or alcohol, polished appearance, permission required to start relationships, and very long hours of work. 17/

Many members would work their full time day jobs then spend all night at the temple - in services, cleaning, on food drives, overnight at church care facilities, producing Temple media. This endless work was a common theme. 18/

And the Temple handled its own discipline. Members lived communally and were expected to report on each other - for drinking, illicit sex, complaining. Punishments were severe - humiliation and beatings in front of group meetings. 19/

And Temple members who wanted to leave often could not. They'd signed their property over to the church. The Temple had a record of harassing and threatening former members, who formed support groups. 20/

Despite the ethos of racial equality, and that the membership was around 75% African American, the leadership group was mostly white, mostly women, many from the original Indiana church families. Almost inevitably, Jones has sexual relationships with many of them. 21/

By 1976, Jim Jones was a powerful man in San Francisco, elected housing authority chairman, regularly in the media and seen as vital in George Moscone's mayoral victory. People's Temple was seen as a model of social service and justice, succeeding where govt couldn't. 22/

The governor and lieutenant governor of California attended a testimonial dinner for Jones, where he was toasted as a combination of Mao Zedung, Martin Luther King Jr, Angela Davis and Albert Einstein by a California assemblyman. What's that about power corrupting? 23/

Jones met with VP candidate Walter Mondale and First Lady Rosalynn Carter (Mrs Carter also met John Wayne Gacy - that woman was not a good judge of character) 24/

People's Temple members attended rallies for left wing issues in their hundreds. By now the Temple wasn't a church, not a cult - it was a social movement.

Of course all this adulation and activity is going to attract attention. 25/

Investigative journalists in SF had been studying the Temple for years. It all came to crisis in mid 1977, when New West magazine published an expose where former members alleged they were physically, mentally and sexually abused in People's Temple. 26/

Jones decided to blow this popsicle stand. The week the article was published he left the US for Guyana, giving orders for many hundreds of his followers to join him. They would live in the People's Temple agricultural project - Jonestown. 27/

Why did Jones abruptly leave the country instead of defending himself and his church? Fear of loss of face and status? We don't know, but it's a theme that would recur.

We do know that by now, Jones was heavily using drugs, a combination of amphetamines and barbiturates. 28/

Which holds the key to his increasingly erratic behaviour and downward spiral over the next, last year. 30/

A small group of Temple members had been working the Jonestown site for years - clearing the jungle, establishing crops, building houses and outbuildings. Members back in the US were shown footage of what was a beautiful place - pure community 31/

Jonestown would be free of the violence, racism and poverty of the States. It was a jungle utopia where Temple members could live a peaceful communal life. Most members were keen to go, to live this life. They did not go to Guyana to die. 32/

But Jonestown was not ready for an influx of 1000+ members over a few months. It was never intended to house more than a few hundred. When members arrived, housing was crowded, food monotonous, long work hours a constant. Still many were happy. 33/

Jonestown quickly established a tightly run community. Members with college degrees and experience took over running of the medical department, school, day care, agriculture, construction, food service and security. Jonestown functioned, on many levels. 34/

I've read the learning pla5 for grade levels. They're thorough. Even the day care had a thorough program of play times, addressing key learning areas and milestones. In the evening the community had classes, film nights, talent shows. 35/

The people who went to Jonestown weren't following Jones because they thought he was a God. They didn't go there to die.

They went there to live, to build a better community.

So why did they die, and how could they poison their kids? We're getting there. 36/

As I mentioned, Jim Jones was taking a lot of drugs. What does amphetamine use make you? Paranoid. He became paranoid the community would be attacked - by the Guyanese army, the CIA, even members' relatives. He beefed up security. There were now armed patrols. 37/

To create a siege mentality, an increasingly paranoid Jones and his small inner circle devised a series of staged attacks on the settlement. Members were told they would be captured, shot, their children sent to re-education camps in the US. 38/

In his sleepless speed-induced manias, Jones would recite speeches that went on for many hours, haranguing members with tales of the tortures being committed back in the US, concentration camps for Black people. Lacking access to the outside world, 39/

Members had no way of knowing what was true. At regular community meetings Jones delivered the same reports of fascist horrors in America. Members were left terrified of what might happen if Jonestown was attacked.

And punishments for infractions continued 40/

But I want to point out - there were no religious services once the Temple was in Guyana. Jim Jones threatened horrors of the real world, not a fantasy world. There was no imagined space ship to take them away, but the very real US military. 41/

Despite all this, many were happy in Jonestown. They escaped the racism and poverty of ghetto life In the US to a place they were building with their own hands, every day.

For others, it was hell on Earth, one with no escape. 42/

There were no phones, all mail was censored, armed patrols of the site, the nearest town 7 miles away on a muddy road through thick jungle of north west Guyana. 43/

In the last months, conditions deteriorated. Food got worse - a diet of mostly rice and beans - work was endless, with all except the very old and very young expected to work in the fields at least sometimes. Jones' sermons on threats and horror played on the loudspeakers 44/

Incidentally there was no reason for such limited food. The land of Jonestown was poor for growing crops, thin and rocky. But the Temple had money. Around 1/3 of members were elderly and the church received tens of thousands a month from their social security checks 45/

Seems Jones was hoarding money... Like he was hoarding his people.

Anyway, survivors have reported morale got worse in the last months. Everyone was hungry, scared, depressed and so exhausted they couldn't think straight. 46/

Amid all this, relatives back in America were desperate for news of their loved ones and agitating to know what was happening. They contacted Congressman Leo Ryan, from San Francisco, who agreed to lead a congressional delegation, accompanied by journalists 47/

Jones was terrified, but was persuaded to let them in. Ryan and his group arrived on November 17, 1978.

Ryan was given a tour of Jonestown, declaring himself impressed with what they'd achieved with their community in the jungle. 48/

That night, the community gave a reception for Ryan in the pavilion. Everyone was perked up by a rare, decent dinner with meat. There were speeches and dancing. A band played. Children clapped and cheered 49/

There's video from that evening which I share because Jonestown's main vocalist, Deanna Wilkinson, seen performing here, has one of the most amazing voices I've ever heard. She deserves to be remembered 50/

But during the concert, several members quietly told members of Ryan's party they were being held prisoner and wanted to leave. Ryan covertly told them he would lead a group of anyone who wanted to escape the next day. 51/

On November 18, 1978 after some staged niceties Ryan informed Jones several defectors wanted to leave. Jones, ashen faced, went into a frozen panic. He was terrified or any threats to his community. Trucks were arranged for the defectors. 52/

Only 20ish members left with Ryan - 5% of the total. But Jones didn't see it that way. Someone had taken his people. Where there was one, there would be others.

He and his lieutenants put into action a plan brewing, unbeknownst to residents, for a long time. 53/

We will never be sure of the exact events but at some stage, Jones sent a group of armed, loyal followers to murder Ryan and the journalists as they waited to board aircraft out of the jungle. 54/

Accompanying Ryan on his trip was his assistant, Jackie Speier. She was shot 5 times on the jungle airstrip and waited 22 hours for medical help.

She ran for Congress in 2008 and still sits there today. 55/

Back at Jonestown, a demoralised and worried membership gathered for a community meeting.

Jones informed them that the gunmen had in fact shot the Congressman's aircraft down. The Guyanese army would be arriving soon to capture the residents.

They would all have to die. 56/

Some residents announced they were ready to follow Jones to the next plane. Others... Who knows.

But they didn't have a choice. Armed guards surrounded the pavilion. Everyone had to die, whether they wanted to or not. 57/

A vat containing purple flavour aid (NOT kool aid) laced with sedatives and cyanide was brought to the pavilion.

The very few survivors have reported the poisoning started with babies pulled from their mother's arms, purple death squirted down their throats. 58/

The leadership figured once the children died, the rest would lose the will to live and go willingly.

And there were 304 children murdered that day. Please don't joke about drinking the Kool aid. It wasn't brainwashed zombies. It was murdered children. 59/

I'm deliberately leaving out some of the worst parts, but the leadership were forcing children to drink. The elderly - who made up another 1/3 of the members - were forcibly injected, some still in their bunks where they lay unable to make it to the meeting. 60/

So that's - at least - 2/3 of the deaths at Jonestown that were murder. What of the adults? They'd seen their kids die. They were exhausted to breaking point. They sincerely believed they would be captured and interned or killed. 61/

Some did choose the death. Some did administer the concoction to their own children.

But I can't see them as evil. I certainly don't see them as mindlessly murdering their kids on the orders of Jim Jones. 62/

And if they themselves weren't convinced, there were the armed guards making sure everyone died. The only survivors were a very few people who played dead, or were given tasks to leave the community to deliver messages of the end of Jonestown. 63/

In the end, 909 people were dead. 304 were children. 186 were seniors.

There's so much more to this, including the US govt's horrendous mishandling of the crime scene - making it impossible to know exactly how people died. 64/

This was possible in the immediate aftermath, when the narrative of crazy cultists took hold. The Jonestown dead were no longer people with families and dreams and lives. They were a unified mass of Jones devotees who'd blindly followed him to death. 65/

There was a great ugly streak of racism in this. 2/3 of those who died at Jonestown were black. Many were from impoverished backgrounds. Their surviving family members were a less privileged group in access to the media. The narrative was set. 66/

In the years since, the tale has become muddied, confused with cult deaths since. Jonestown? Isn't that where they wore white sheets and died to follow a space ship? After they murdered their kids?

That's not what happened. 67/

There was Jones, out of his mind on drugs, paranoid and possessive. His inner circle who made his plans reality.

But most of those in Jonestown were people prepared to work for a dream of equality. They were good people who don't deserve to be remembered this way. 68/

Here are the faces of those who died in Jonestown. Please remember them this way, and not as brainwashed zombies.

jonestown.sdsu.edu/wp-content/upl…

And please don't joke about drinking the kool aid. 69/

As a final note, if you'd like to know more I enthusiastically refer you to Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple hosted by San Diego State University, as thorough a resource as you'll find jonestown.sdsu.edu /FIN you can unmute me now.