The Peoples Temple, the new religious movement which came to be known for the mass killings at Jonestown, was headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States from the early to mid-1970s until the Temple's move to Guyana in 1977. During this period, the Temple and its founder, Reverend Jim Jones, rose to national prominence thanks to Jones' interest in social and political causes, and wielded a significant amount of influence in San Francisco's city government.
History
The Peoples Temple began in 1955 as a racially integrated Christian church founded by Reverend Jim Jones. While the Temple originated in suburban Indiana, the congregation moved to Redwood Valley, California in the late 1960s after Jones predicted a nuclear apocalypse that would facilitate the beginning of a socialist Eden on earth. By the mid-1970s, the organization possessed over a dozen locations in California, including in San Francisco and Los Angeles.Wessinger, Catherine. How the Millennium Comes Violently: From Jonestown to Heaven's Gate. Seven Bridges Press, 2000. .Reiterman, Tim and John Jacobs. Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People. Dutton, 1982. . pp. 163–64.
Its headquarters later moved into San Francisco, where Jones remained until July 1977, when he fled with almost 1,000 Temple members to the cult's remote settlement at Jonestown, Guyana following an investigative article in New West magazine.
San Francisco activities When the Temple expanded its operations into the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1970s, its staff concentrated on advertising the organization's bus caravans to attract new converts, including the handing out of free trinkets. p. 151 By 1972, despite the Temple 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.Reiterman, Tim, and John Jacobs. Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People. Dutton, 1982. . p. 164. The Temple had previously held services in San Francisco and Los Angeles since 1970.Kilduff, Marshall and Phil Tracy. "Inside Peoples Temple." New West Magazine. 1 August 1977 (hosted at Alternative Considerations of Jonestown and Peoples Temple. Jonestown Project: San Diego State University).
In 1971, the Temple established a permanent facility in San Francisco at 1859 Geary Boulevard, an old building in the city's Western Addition that used to be a Scottish Rite temple;City of San Francisco, Virtual Museum – 1906 Earthquake Photographs a Los Angeles facility followed two years later. The Temple purchased the Geary Boulevard building for $122,500 in 1972.Kilduff, Marshall and Ron Javers. Suicide Cult: The Inside Story of the Peoples Temple Sect and the Massacre in Guyana. Bantam Books, New York, 1978. . p. 39. While the Temple's Los Angeles facility initially attracted a larger, mostly African-American membership, the Temple later enticed hundreds of devoted Los Angeles members to move north to San Francisco to attend Temple meetings at Geary Boulevard.
By August 1975, Jones had completely abandoned prior plans to make Redwood Valley an internal "promised land." p. 161 The reversal of the direction of Temple efforts from rural areas back into urban areas, where it had focused when located in Indiana, was complete. The liberal, counter-cultural stronghold of San Francisco better reflected the Temple's politics than conservative Indiana, and relocating to San Francisco permitted Jones and his followers to be open with their ideology.
However, Jones' faith healing ceremonies were problematic for the Temple, as they also drew some religious conservatives who were less likely to join a socialist organization. Because of this and the Temple's constant fear of conspiracies by outsiders opposing its message, new members were carefully screened.
Entrants to the Geary Boulevard facility were not permitted free access to the inner areas of the buildings. Rather, they were greeted by an amicable covert interrogation party that sized up visitors, with "suspicious" figures told to wait indefinitely in the lobby.Reiterman, Tim, and John Jacobs. Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People. Dutton, 1982. . p. 165. The Temple assigned admitted attendees an "interpreter" of sorts to watch their reactions to the meetings and "explain" Jones' statements. If the attendee seemed non-objectionable, a five-week period of observation began, which usually involved sifting through the attendees' trash by the third or fourth week.
San Francisco Temple life As the Temple shifted its focus to cities in the mid-1970s, communes became an important means of tightening controls and improving finances.Reiterman, Tim, and John Jacobs. Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People. Dutton, 1982. . page 256. Temple members in San Francisco were urged to live a communal lifestyle.Reiterman, Tim, and John Jacobs. Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People. Dutton, 1982. . page 255. Members elevated to the Temple's central governing body, the Planning Commission, were expected to "go communal." The money saved from communal living was to be donated to the Temple.
Children of Temple members would also be raised "communally," often in other Temple communes or through guardianships. The Temple stressed physical discipline, which involved repeated paddlings of children with a wooden paddle in front of Temple members.Reiterman, Tim, and John Jacobs. Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People. Dutton, 1982. . page 259. The practice later turned into disciplinary boxing matches, where the disciplined child was outmatched by one or more other members. Later, adult Temple members were involved in both paddlings and boxing matches.
Planning Commission meetings in San Francisco would sometimes run all night.Kilduff, Marshall and Ron Javers. Suicide Cult: The Inside Story of the Peoples Temple Sect and the Massacre in Guyana. Bantam Books, New York, 1978. . page 61-64. They often involved long "catharsis" sessions in which members would be called "on the floor" for emotional dissections, including why they were wearing nice clothes when others in the world were starving. Other members were expected to accuse those "on the floor" of various disallowed activities, while the Temple considered it improper for the accused to mount a defense. The Temple also asked adults to sign papers admitting various crimes and wrongdoings, including conspiring against the U.S. government, involvement in terrorist acts and molesting their own children. If such members attempted to leave the Temple, Jones threatened to release the statements.
The Temple converted some former real estate of its members into communal living units, and came to possess at least a dozen such locations scattered throughout San Francisco's Fillmore district.Kilduff, Marshall and Ron Javers. Suicide Cult: The Inside Story of the Peoples Temple Sect and the Massacre in Guyana. Bantam Books, New York, 1978. . page 84. Communal members' possessions were sold through two Temple antique stores and through weekend flea markets. Because of commune size constraints, Temple security chief Jim McElvane shot and buried communal members' pets in mass graves.
Media alliances
In 1972, Jones first met Dr. Carlton Goodlett, publisher of the San Francisco newspaper The Sun Reporter, which was targeted towards African-American readers. The two encountered each other at political rallies and at Goodlett's medical practice. The Sun Reporter soon thereafter presented the Temple with a "Special Merit Award."Reiterman, Tim, and John Jacobs. Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People. Dutton, 1982. . page 264. Temple media advisor Michael Prokes, a former reporter for a CBS affiliate, dined with Sun Reporter editor Tom Fleming and spoke of harassment of the Temple by the CIA and FBI.
The Temple and Goodlett soon forged an alliance, with Goodlett permitting the Temple to print its Peoples Forum newspaper on The Sun Reporters presses.Reiterman, Tim, and John Jacobs. Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People. Dutton, 1982. . page 265. The deal was profitable for The Sun Reporter, and Jones and Goodlett entered into another media venture to invest and reorganize the Norfolk, Virginia newspaper The Journal and Guide.Goodlett, Carlton B., Notes on Peoples Temple, reprinted in Moore, Rebecca and Fielding M. McGehee, III, The Need for a Second Look at Jonestown, Edwin Mellen Press, 1989, The Peoples Forums first issue was published in 1973, with a large format issue first being published in 1976.Reiterman, Tim, and John Jacobs. Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People. Dutton, 1982. . page 137.
While Jones hoped to build the People's Forum into San Francisco's third largest daily paper behind the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner, and grossly exaggerated the circulation of the paper at "600,000", the paper only modestly grew to a circulation of closer to 60,000. While The Sun Reporter printed positive articles about the Temple, and despite his apparent close ties to Goodlett, Jones called the publisher a "Cadillac communist" behind his back.
Jones also cultivated other media relationships. At the Chronicle, famed columnist Herb Caen was the Temple's most widely read media acquaintance, while city editor Steven Gavin attended Temple services along with a Chronicle reporter.Reiterman, Tim, and John Jacobs. Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People. Dutton, 1982. . page 285, 306 and 587. Several reporters at local newspapers and television stations also spoke favorably of the Temple.
Caen repeated some of Prokes' claims of orchestrated harassment by the CIA and FBI against the Temple in his columns.Reiterman, Tim, and John Jacobs. Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People. Dutton, 1982. . page 587. Jones also won the National Newspaper Publishers Association Man of the Year Award, given by the Black Press of America. The Temple also broadcast a weekly hour-long radio show that ran in several cities, including KFAX in San Francisco.Kilduff, Marshall and Ron Javers. Suicide Cult: The Inside Story of the Peoples Temple Sect and the Massacre in Guyana. Bantam Books, New York, 1978. . page 43.
The Temple carefully rehearsed any meetings Jones would have with reporters,Kilduff, Marshall and Ron Javers. Suicide Cult: The Inside Story of the Peoples Temple Sect and the Massacre in Guyana. Bantam Books, New York, 1978. . page 75-6. staging visits to the Geary Boulevard facility, permitting reporters to see only specific parts of the building, and stationing Temple members in places to compliment the reporter.
Political beginnings
Political volunteerism
Several political developments in San Francisco in the mid-1970s, including a shift from citywide elections of county supervisors to district elections as well as campaign spending limits and reporting requirements, bestowed unprecedented power on local neighborhood groups and civil organizations such as the Peoples Temple.Reiterman, Tim, and John Jacobs. Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People. Dutton, 1982. . page 263. The organization began distinguishing itself with an overtly political message.Reiterman, Tim and John Jacobs. Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People. Dutton, 1982. . p. 280. It participated in political processes and formed alliances, not just for the sake of expediency, but also out of genuine political sympathies. As the ideological direction of the Temple became more openly socialist, it depended more upon the political world.