Jim Jones

James Warren "Jim" Jones (1931-05-13 – 1978-11-18) was the founder of the controversial People's Temple, which is best known for the November 18, 1978 death of over 900 Temple members in Jonestown, Guyana along with the deaths of nine other people at a nearby airstrip and in Georgetown.

Sourced

• "My whole life I have suffered from poverty and have faced many disappointments and pain, like a man is used to. That is why I want to make other people happy and want them to feel at home."
  • (1978). Translated back from Dutch to English, indirectly sourced, Messiahs: The vision and prophecies for the Second coming by John Hogue

• The young preacher once threw his Bible to the floor and yelled at his associates, "Too many people are looking at this instead of looking at me!"
  • Time Magazine, December 4, 1978, Messiah from the Midwest

• "If you're born in capitalist America, racist America, fascist America, then you're born in sin. But if you're born in socialism, you're not born in sin."
  • Jones, Jim. "The Letter Killeth." Original material reprint. Department of Religious Studies. San Diego State University.

• "What you need to believe in is what you can see... If you see me as your friend, I'll be your friend. If you see me as your father, I'll be your father, for those of you that don't have a father... If you see me as your savior, I'll be your savior. If you see me as your God, I'll be your God."
  • Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple. American Experience, PBS.org.

About Jim Jones

• We were about to board the planes for the flight back to the United States. Jim Jones didn't want us to leave, at least not alive. A tractor trailer loaded with men armed with shotguns and rifles pulled up and opened fire on us at that airstrip. Congressman Ryan was gunned down, having been shot 40 times. The first and only congressman in the history of this country to be assassinated during the line of duty. I was shot five times and left to bleed on that airstrip for 22 hours. Back at Jonestown, over 900 people lost their lives in a mass murder and suicide that night. This is what I awoke to on that long day. I was 28 years old, and I was waiting to die. I laid awake all night fearing some of the gunmen would come back and finish us off. Time passed, and local Guyanese people offered me rum to try and get me through the night. I had a lot of time to think. I promised God that if I lived, I would make every day count. I promised that I would make something out of my life if I was allowed to keep my life. Well, here I am. I have chosen a career as a public servant. One, I hope many of you will contemplate as you move forward in your lives.
  • Jackie Speier, Commencement Speaker, San Francisco State University, 2006