The Road to Jonestown Read online

  Word spread that Pastor Jones now practiced healings at Community Unity. Members of other black Indianapolis churches began skipping their regular services to visit, often out of simple curiosity but some, like Christine Cobb, in hopes that Jones would work a miracle on behalf of a loved one. Christine’s seven-year-old son, Jim, suffered dizzy spells from an ear ailment. Jones called the boy to the front, touched his ear, and announced that it was healed. Five years later, Jim Cobb required ear surgery, but by then his mother and other members of the extended Cobb family were fully committed followers.

  * * *

  As his flock increased, Jones was able to acquire badly needed space for the congregation. He agreed to purchase a building at 10th and Delaware Streets; it could hold seven hundred worshippers, and was still in the lower-class district of Indianapolis. Community Unity really had its choice of properties in the neighborhood. “White flight,” middle-class America’s mid-1950s abandonment of the inner cities for suburbs to escape growing numbers of minorities, affected faith-based organizations as it did families and businesses. Several major sects pulled out of downtown Indianapolis; Community Unity bought the property being left by a Jewish congregation. It cost $50,000; Jones promised he would raise the money to pay for it in full within a year, and did, from collections at out-of-town appearances.

  Community Unity celebrated its new home with a name change. Briefly, the church was known as Wings of Deliverance. But the word “Temple” was carved in stone outside the building, and so Jones decided that the name of his church would reflect both its philosophy and the carving: Peoples Temple, not People’s, because the apostrophe symbolized ownership. After all, one of the key Temple goals was to discourage obsession with material possessions.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  GAINING INFLUENCE

  With his home church now boasting a congregation of impressive size and racial diversity, Jim Jones was ready to assert himself with Indianapolis policymakers. From zoning issues to street repair to upkeep of schools, the city’s black community had never had adequate input. Jones intended to change that—but his personal shortcomings threatened to prevent it.

  Jim Jones’s most effective means of persuasion was empathy. He had an uncanny ability to meet someone, surmise what was important to him or her, and then convince the person that he shared the same interests. They could work together to achieve a common goal. This gift worked well for him in establishing Community Unity. Jones knew all about being poor and powerless, and how much it meant to have someone who could help achieve even little victories. On the revival circuit, Jones could identify with people wanting an uplifting mix of gospel and showmanship.

  But nothing in Jones’s life so far prepared him to deal at elevated political and business levels. He had no sense of how to effectively gain the attention, then cooperation, of important individuals whose time and influence were in constant demand. Sheer force of personality worked for Jones at lower administrative levels. He’d lobbied successfully on behalf of impoverished Indianapolis followers with utility company clerks and public school secretaries. Now he wanted to deal directly with the highest public officials and business executives. Jones realized that in itself access meant nothing. Indianapolis’s black ministers had participated in supposedly high-level meetings for years without any tangible results to show for it. Jones wanted to persuade important people to do things, but had no idea how.

  Fortunately for Jones, he was married to someone who did.

  Marceline Jones chafed at her role in Jones’s early ministry. But she had the critical background and skills that he did not. Marceline was the daughter of a former city councilman, the child of parents involved in all manner of important civic issues. She understood that you didn’t develop working relationships with important people through demands and bluster. You did your homework, learned about every aspect of an issue, and then suggested plans that in some way benefited all sides involved. Essentially, whenever you could, you offered solutions. Then, when you did point out a problem, people who could do something about it listened and were ready to help.

  Marceline began attending public meetings, at city hall and the school administration building and in private homes all over Indianapolis where neighborhood associations gathered. Jim Jones had no patience with any meeting where he was not the featured speaker. Marceline always listened and rarely spoke, beyond introducing herself and complimenting others on their remarks. Afterward she jotted extensive notes about which people she’d just met seemed to be the most capable, the best-connected. She made a point of cultivating them. Marceline brought home information packets about proposed city and school bond programs and read every line. She coached Jones on critical aspects, some of them obscure to anyone unfamiliar with the intricate details legally required in public projects. Then, at important public hearings, Jones came with Marceline, and he was the one who stood up to make surprising, relevant points, impressing panels who assumed no one other than staff read all the fine print. Often, he made helpful, pragmatic suggestions—wouldn’t it make sense if this item was added to the budget, or that program expanded? Jones rapidly gained a reputation as one of the few community-based leaders, and probably the only minister, who really understood how these things worked. Jones just as quickly learned how this game was played. Publicly, he acted as though he’d known all along. When, for the first time, some black neighborhood streets were included in bond improvement packages, or some of the poorest schools in Indianapolis got bond-funded playground equipment, Jim Jones of Peoples Temple received much of the credit and his wife got none. Marceline didn’t mind. What mattered to her was that, finally, the Joneses were a team.

  Marceline also took the lead in establishing the next source of income for Peoples Temple. Inevitably, some of the church’s older members, often black women, physically deteriorated to the point where they could no longer care for themselves and were placed in publicly funded nursing homes. Jones made regular visits and was in his element, telling jokes and offering uplifting prayers. But at home, he complained to Marceline about substandard conditions. She investigated licensing requirements, and soon the Joneses’ own home was renovated to meet standards for state certification. With the help of fifty-five-year-old Esther Mueller, a white woman hired as an assistant, they accepted several elderly live-in patients, receiving government payment for their care. It wasn’t a scam. Inspectors from the Marion County Welfare Department made regular visits and came away impressed, especially with Marceline, who was complimented in one report as “very competent and kind.” Based on this initial success, she and Jones formed a corporation and, during the next few years, took over management of several nursing homes. These provided jobs for Peoples Temple congregants, and the money needed not only to pay for outreach programs, but to promote them. Jones was able to purchase daily time on a local radio station, fifteen minutes at 4:45 p.m. on weekdays. It was enough time to offer a taped prayer, short sermon, Jones’s thoughts on some relevant issue or to announce a Temple-sponsored event.

  The most important of these took place in June 1955, when Jones co-headlined an Indianapolis religious gathering with Rev. William Branham, one of the most famous evangelists in the country. Jones wasn’t nearly as well known, but he drew a significant portion of the audience, mostly blacks. One who came away impressed after hearing Jones was Archie Ijames, a self-educated, independent-minded man in his midforties. Ijames had despaired of any church being able to effectively challenge racism. But he found Jones’s all-inclusive message inspiring, and afterward visited Peoples Temple with his wife and children. The whole family enjoyed the experience and became members. Ijames was a natural leader, smart, energetic, and dedicated. Jones recognized his potential. He noticed some weaknesses, too—Ijames tended to talk so rapidly that one word blended into the next, sometimes rendering his speech incomprehensible. Jones also felt his new Temple member was a player, someone constantly looking to turn situations to personal advantage. He named
Ijames an associate pastor, giving him a title but limited authority. It looked good for Jones to have a black man as his primary public assistant, and he found plenty for Archie to do. In particular, Ijames was involved in daily management of the Temple’s public programs.

  Thanks again to income from the nursing home operations, the church opened a café that was grandly named “The Free Restaurant.” Anyone who had no money and was hungry could come there and eat. On its first day of operation, eighteen people were served; the second day, nearly a hundred. Soon, about 2,800 were fed weekly. All day, lines stretched outside. After their appetites were satisfied, particularly ragged diners were invited to choose clothes from a selection of mostly secondhand items. These were sometimes patched, but always clean. Jones solicited clothing donations on the radio and in his public appearances. The Bible commanded followers of Christ to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. Peoples Temple did both, and in a manner that demonstrated respect for everyone served.

  For the first time, Jones presided over a congregation that included dozens of children. He wanted them to think coming to church was fun, not something adults made them do. Sometimes during services, Jones would stop preaching and tell the kids to get up and stretch. Once, he interrupted his own Easter service to ask the youngsters what song they wanted to sing next. When they screamed for “Here Comes Peter Cottontail,” that’s what the whole congregation sang, Jones’s pleasant voice booming out loudest of all. Marceline loved organizing anything that involved children. Under her guidance, Peoples Temple soon had youth choirs and dance troupes. Sometimes these groups were invited to perform on local television shows. Jones began touting Temple youth programs to prospective members with children: Didn’t they think their kids would be better off in wholesome church activities instead of dangerous slum streets? For some parents, especially single mothers, that was reason enough to join Peoples Temple.

  At Jones’s invitation, candidates for city or county offices began dropping in to Sunday services. Peoples Temple now represented a sizable voting bloc—it had hundreds of adult members, and Jones urged everyone to register to vote and go to the polls in every election. He stopped short of openly telling his congregation how to vote, but wasn’t shy about declaring his own preferences. Even in a big city like Indianapolis, three or four hundred votes could swing a close election. Jones wasn’t hesitant to remind anyone of that. He and his followers enjoyed hearing candidates, most often white men who’d never set foot in the slums before, asking for votes and promising support of Peoples Temple programs in return.

  In Indianapolis, Jim Jones now had the influence he craved. Peoples Temple, which welcomed everyone, freely distributed food and clothing to those in need of them most—the truest form of socialism. More money was always needed, but income from Jones’s outside appearances and the nursing homes subsidized the good works. Jones, and Peoples Temple, weren’t beholden to anyone else.

  But it wasn’t enough. Jones had learned of someone else doing everything he was, only bigger and better. At this stage in his ministry, Jones still didn’t mind playing the part of student. Here was someone with much to teach him, and so Jim Jones reached out to this other preacher, who claimed that he was the Lord—and whose followers believed it. In their worship services they sang, “God is here on earth today, Father Divine is his name.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  FATHER DIVINE

  The mysteries about the man who convinced many that he was God begin with his birth. Most historians and biographers estimate that he was born to a former slave around 1879 or 1880 in Rockville, Maryland. His original name was probably George Baker. As a young man, Baker worked as a gardener, but his fascination with Christianity led him to follow a series of evangelists, each of whom claimed to offer the only true path to salvation. Some claimed God-given powers in their roles as holy prophets.

  Baker studied each of his mentors, cherry-picking the aspects of their preaching that suited him best. He would recall, “I find that there is something good with all of them. I endeavor to be as a honeybee to get the good out of every seed or flower.” Around 1912 he renamed himself the Messenger, and set out on his own to prove that “the Gospel can be preached without money and without price.” Everywhere he traveled, the gist of the Messenger’s teaching was that heaven can be found only on earth, not some undefinable place in the sky. Hymns composed by whites were really “death songs,” intended to trick Negroes into thinking they should suffer now in exchange for future admission to heaven. The Messenger promised that God would provide immediately in the welcome forms of social, economic, and political progress if people would only be kind and generous to each other. He revealed himself as God on earth, claimed the power to heal, and began acquiring loyal followers, at first mostly African American women.

  The Messenger initially based his ministry in the South, but after several brushes with white law enforcement he relocated to Harlem in New York. There he began housing his followers together in apartments. He forbade smoking, swearing, drinking, and sex—men and women could be together only for worship and other nonromantic interaction. Newcomers were welcome to join, but only if they accepted and followed these rigid rules. Even the leader conformed. He married a woman named Penniniah, but swore it was a spiritual union and never physically consummated.

  Next, the Messenger organized his followers into a work collective. He placed them in jobs; salaries were pooled to cover group expenses. Shelter, clothing, and food were all provided through him. The ranks swelled. Many came to him physically or emotionally unable to cope. He expanded his program to include physical therapy for those who needed it, and instituted job training programs so that when he found people work, they would be successful. With reason, most swore that he’d completely changed their lives for the better. They were a family, encouraged to address the Messenger as Father and his wife as Mother. Then their leader took another name: Reverend Major Jealous Divine—“Major” to indicate high rank, “Jealous” to reflect the scripture passage citing a jealous God. He was Father Divine to his flock, and to the media that increasingly wrote about such a colorful character.

  In the late 1910s, Harlem experienced a rebirth of community-generated art and music. Father Divine didn’t want his followers tainted by such worldliness, so he moved his flock to the Long Island village of Sayville. He had thousands of followers now, and some of them were white. His philosophy of enjoying life now by sharing and working together resonated beyond race.

  Father Divine expanded his communal control in Sayville. Everyone lived together, and worked in jobs where he placed them. Divine himself began studying books about building economic empires. His ambition reached beyond a single isolated colony and the pooling of blue-collar wages. As his welcome in Sayville wore out—residents were bothered by so many whites living with blacks—Father Divine returned to the revival circuit and was absent much of the time. Even as his popularity with locals dwindled, he drew sellout crowds around the rest of the country. In 1932, these were estimated to average twelve thousand, and he crowed that, in all, more than three million people were now “believing in me and calling on me.” Some formed offshoots of the Sayville commune. These settlements were known as Peace Missions. Divine began publicly commenting on politics and social issues—to combat racism, he insisted that his followers be completely integrated, to the point of blacks and whites being alternately seated at meals and in cars.

  Inevitably, some disillusioned followers left Peace Missions and complained to authorities about mistreatment. Father Divine was attacked from pulpits by other ministers who were offended by his claim to be God. There were raids on gatherings of his followers. Though he insisted that the charges were manufactured by his enemies, in 1932 Father Divine was sentenced to one year in prison for various forms of fraud. He entered prison defiantly, proclaiming that “Every knock is a boost, every criticism is a praise.” Divine served only a few weeks before being released on bail. Afterward, the Peace Movement
flourished; its leader now focused mostly on secular issues. Divine presided over the opening of dozens of Movement-owned businesses, including hotels and restaurants. Many of his followers lived in the hotels; empty rooms were rented to the public for a dollar a night. In Movement restaurants, diners paid whatever they thought the meals that they’d eaten were worth. Profits from other businesses funded further expansion. In the 1930s, the Movement acquired extensive farmland in Ulster County, New York, and named it Promised Land. Most produce grown there fed those living in Peace Mission communes—Father Divine meant for his people to be self-sufficient.

  There was more trouble in the late 1930s. Some of his most trusted associates left the Movement and accused Father Divine of keeping his followers in a state of virtual slavery. They also claimed that, despite his prohibition against sex, Divine and Movement members sometimes indulged in orgies. A highly publicized lawsuit alleging fraud was brought against Divine by a former adherent claiming he’d cheated her of money and property. When, after years of courtroom haggling, a judge in New York City finally ruled against Divine, he responded, “I have long since declared I will shake creation,” and in 1942 moved his headquarters to Philadelphia.

  He remained controversial. Penniniah became ill, and, despite her husband’s promise to cure her, died in 1943. Three years later, Divine married a twenty-one-year-old white woman, proclaiming that Penniniah’s spirit had simply chosen to leave an old body for this new one. Thus, his promise to cure his wife hadn’t failed at all. Afterward, for the first time, Divine’s sermons began touting reincarnation. The second Mother Divine was far more active in his ministry than the first.