There are two movies coming out about Jonestown. Both are probably way off the mark.
Yes, I knew Jim Jones…fairly well.
When Jim first arrived in San Francisco, he did what most black ministers do, pay a visit to the black leaders. Cecil Williams, at Glide Memorial Methodist Church, was a main black leader at the time and I was the manager of Glide.
Cecil was put off by the three gorilla body guards that Jim had with him and offered to have me teach Jim’s staff the proper way to use body guards (First rule: don’t be obvious.) I taught them and I also offered my services to help set up the bookkeeping and financial system for Jim’s church. “No way” replied Jim … a clue to the future.
Jim got to know every....
Jim got to know every important person in San Francisco from the Mayor to nearly all my friends. (They all denied knowing Jim when Jonestown happened.) Jim was charming and charismatic. He could also deliver his 5,000 mixed black and white church members for any event, political or social. That made him very powerful.
I watched Jim change over the six years I knew him. He lost some of
his comfort and gentleness and became more cautious and reticent.
After his death many people who knew nothing about him said it was
drugs.
I doubt it. My experience with Jim was very real. I watched him succumb in several of the later years to the wiles of his most important, cunning and smartest advisor. I think the advisor’s name was Michael Prokes, a former CBS news reporter who committed suicide in Modesto about a year after Jonestown.
I haven’t seen the two new movies about Jim, but I’ve heard the focus
is on cults and leader worship. The reality is that Jim Jones was a
preacher whose theology was a combination of Jesus Salvation and Lefty
Fundamentalism. It was his core socialist/Leninist doctrine that drove
Jim personally,that shaped his world view and the unique message that
attracted his followers.
From the time of the Jonestown event till today, I have said this tragedy will play out over time to become the American version of Guy Fawkes Day. Every new piece of new Jones apocrypha supports my thesis.
Footnotes: I never saw Jim without his sun glasses (top left photo) nor wearing a red suit (top right photo). My partner asked about "the point of this blog?" I am pointing out the role of Michael Prokes in Jonestown and Lefty Fundamentalism in People's Temple. Also I believe that the horror of religious suicide will become a core terror metaphor in the American psyche (think New York Twin Towers).