Citation

Russell G. Commentary 2012; 133(1): 38-41.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, American Jewish Committee)

DOI

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PMID

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Abstract

George Russell discusses how Jim Jones led to mass suicide by Americans at Jonestown, Guyana on November 18, 1978. Members of the Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church lined up around a pavilion on their failing communal farm to poison themselves and their children with doses of purple, cyanide-laced Flavor-Aid. The Jones show was a highly successful act among the homeless, dispossessed, lonely, and often idealistic core of lower-middle-class and street people who were drawn in large numbers to the Peoples Temple. Jones was friends with other radical showmen and ideologues like Dennis Banks of the American Indian Movement, the implacable Communist Angela Davis, and her friends and acquaintances in the Black Panther Party led by Huey P. Newton, the very essence of lumpenproletariat insurrection. Spying for signs of disaffection, disloyalty, or violations of excruciating Temple rules among friends, lovers, husbands and wives, parents and children was encouraged.

Language: en

Keywords

suicide; religion; ideology