Jim Jones

Jim and Marceline Jones adopted three children of Korean-American ancestry named Lew, Suzanne and Stephanie.

In 1954, they adopted an eleven year old girl of Native American ancestry named Agnes Jones.

In 1959, the couple had their first and only biological child - a son named Stephan Gandhi Jones.

James Warren Jones was born on May 13, 1931 in Crete, Indiana to James Thurman Jones, a World War I veteran and Lynetta Putnam. His father was an alcoholic and worked as a mystic fortune teller.

His family went through an economic crisis during the Great Depression and had to move to Lynn, Indiana, in 1934.

As a child, Jim was heavily influenced by the works of Karl Marx, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Mahatma Gandhi. He developed a keen interest in religion and its influence on people.

He was described as a ‘really weird kid’ as he was obsessed with death. He used to hold funerals for small animals and had also stabbed a cat to death.

Jim had a clash with his father when the latter did not allow one of Jim’s black friends to enter the house. Jim was always intolerant about the racial discrimination seen in America, mainly because of his own experiences as an outcast.

The year 1951 can be regarded as the start of his career when he started attending meetings of the Communist party in Indianapolis. He was agitated by open communists in the USA. He asked himself, “How can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was to infiltrate the church.” The harassment and frustration had provoked him to do so.

A Methodist superintendent helped him get a start in the church. In 1952, he became a student pastor in the Somerset Southside Methodist Church. There, he observed that people with money are attracted to faith healing and such services and these financial resources can be helpful in his goals.

He arranged a huge convention from June11 to June 15, 1956. Thereafter, he launched his own church, changing names until finally it got to be known as the Peoples Temple Christian Church Full Gospel which was open to all races.

In 1960, he was appointed the Director of Human Rights Commission by Democratic Mayor Charles Boswell.

He started integrating police stations, Hospitals, churches, restaurants, etc. He started setting stings catching restaurants refusing to serve black customers or hospitals refusing black patients. Political pressure from Jones made quite a few hospitals desegregate the wards.

Jim received several humanitarian awards in Northern California, owing to his work with the poor and the under privileged.

Due to his commitment for school activism, Jim was appointed to the San Francisco Housing Authority by Mayor George Mascone in 1976.