Jonestown: 40 Years Later!

The graphic photos of the victims of the Jonestown massacre.

Today, marks 40 years.

The Jonestown mass killing. Mostly people of color were killed when a religious sect leader who founded the People's Temple of the Disciples of Christ casted them false hope and slavery. A religious cult leader named Jim Jones managed to manipulate over 900 people to drink Flavor Aid laced with cyanide in a Guyana settlement.

Jones started the Peoples Temple in Indiana during the 1950s. He was officially ordained in 1956 by the Independent Assemblies of God and in 1964 by the Disciples of Christ. He moved the Temple to California in 1965 and gained notoriety with its activities in San Francisco in the early 1970s. He then relocated to Guyana.

Jim Jones was an activist and civil rights leader. He was also a cult leader and mass murderer.

Everyone in that settlement were killed. The American government was concerned that Jones was holding innocent people against their will. In 1978, media reports surfaced that human rights abuses were taking place in the Peoples Temple in Jonestown.

Jones was a well-armed and well maintained religious leader. He was considered a grifter and a scam artist. When a Democratic lawmaker and staff were boarding an airplane, they were ambushed by the armed security.

The late Leo Ryan was killed by Jones' security after he and his group tried to flee Guyana with People's Temple defectors.

U.S. Representative Leo Ryan led a delegation into the commune to investigate what was going on; Ryan and others were murdered by gunfire while boarding a return flight with defectors. Jones subsequently committed a mass murder-suicide of 918 of his followers, 304 of whom were children, almost all by cyanide poisoning via Flavor Aid.

Jones saw Jonestown as both a "socialist paradise" and a "sanctuary" from media scrutiny that had started with the Kinsolving articles. Former Temple member Tim Carter said the Temple moved to Jonestown because "in '74, what we saw in the United States was creeping fascism."

Carter explained, "It was apparent that corporations, or the multinationals, were getting much larger, their influence was growing within the government, and the United States is a racist place."

Jim Jones, Jr. the adopted son of the religious cultist Jim Jones condemns his father's actions.

Carter said the Temple concluded that Guyana was "a place in a black country where our black members could live in peace", "it was a socialist government" and it was "the only English-speaking country in South America."

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) was a survivor of a mass shooting. Speier was a congressional aide to then lawmaker Ryan.

Speier was one of two members of the mission who made wills before traveling to Jonestown.

While trying to shield herself from rifle and shotgun fire behind small airplane wheels with other team members, Speier was shot five times and waited 22 hours before help arrived.

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) is a survivor of the Jonestown massacre.

While some refer to the events in Jonestown as mass suicide, many others, including Jonestown survivors, regard them as mass murder. As many as 70 people may have been injected with poison, and a third of the victims (304) were minors.It was the largest such event in modern history and resulted in the largest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until September 11, 2001.

Black people made up approximately 70% of Jonestown's population. 45% of Jonestown residents were black women.

Black female = 460 (45%)
Black male = 231 (23%)
White female = 138 (13%)
White male = 108 (11%)
Mixed female = 27 (3%)
Mixed male = 12 (1%)
Other female = 13 (1%)
Other male = 10 (1%)