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November 10, 1998, San Francisco Chronicle, Marginalia,

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November 10, 1998, San Francisco Chronicle, Marginalia

 

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA; JONESTOWN, GUYANA -- Peoples Temple's philosophy was a mix of old-time religion, agnosticism, Marxist cant and other elements. Printed on its stationery was this passage from Matthew 25:35-40: "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me . . . Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me."

 

Jonestown pioneers built 60 eight-person cottages and five single-sex dorms. These residences were filled beyond capacity when the majority of residents arrived from the Bay Area in the summer and fall of 1977.

While the 20th anniversary of the death of Jonestown has sparked an intense flurry of retrospectives, second-guessing and deep-thinking in the U.S. media, about the only people in Guyana who are taking note of Jonestown are from somewhere else.

 

"The whole place has been overtaken by the jungle," said Patric Denny, managing editor of the Stabroek News in Georgetown, of the Jonestown site.

 

The road from Port Kaituma is almost impassable.

 

"It's a bad memory," Denny says, saying that when it does come up, the conversation generally centers on how the CIA-backed government of the late Prime Minister Forbes Burnham allowed it to happen.

"It's not one of those things people are terribly interested in," Denny says.

 

"Revolutionary suicide," a concept espoused by the Black Panthers' Huey Newton, had been embraced by the leadership of Peoples Temple at least since 1973. Practice suicide drills were held frequently in Jonestown and to some degree, earlier in San Francisco.

 

Of those who died at Jonestown, 70 were under 5 years old, 82 under 11 and 188 under 19. Some 146 seniors, 66 or older, also died.

Bad numbers?

Jones chose Redwood Valley, near Ukiah, for Peoples Temple because of its remoteness. He believed the end of the world would come either through nuclear war or - and this was the reason he convinced his members of "revolutionary suicide" as a defense - a fascist takeover.

 

Peoples Temple's flight to Guyana began in 1974 when a small group rented a house in Georgetown, even as the last of the faithful were still moving from Redwood Valley to San Francisco. By 1975, 50 people were living at Jonestown, the same number who were there in May 1977. By autumn of 1977, the Jonestown population had grown to more than 1,000.

 

More than 70 percent of Peoples Temple members were black, about 25 percent were white. The majority of the inner circle was white, as was Jones. About half of the population of Jonestown was black women.

John Victor Stoen, born in 1972 and claimed by Jim Jones as his child, was the center of a paternity battle among his parents, Tim and Grace, and Jones that helped persuade Rep. Leo Ryan to go to Jonestown. The Stoens both defected from Jonestown and led the Concerned Relatives' attack on Jones. They divorced and both remarried. She now lives in the East Bay. He recently moved from Mendocino to Colorado Springs. John Victor died during White Night.

 

There were 85 survivors of the White Night murder-suicides. Two were Jim and Marceline Jones' son and adopted son - Stephan and Jim Jr. - who were in Georgetown with the camp basketball team. The team lost to the Georgetown national team. Some members escaped into the jungle, as did temple lawyers and rivals Mark Lane, who fed Jones' paranoia about conspiracies against him, and the late Charles Garry, who believed in the goals of Jonestown. The two hated each other but spent the night huddling together for warmth. Another survivor was 76-year-old member Hyacinth Thrash. She slept through the entire horror.

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