Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple Page #6

---

They flew out to Guyana,

six hours before

that article was going to hit.

When Jim Jones decided that

there was too much pressure,

too much trouble

to stay in San Francisco,

he ordered the move to Jonestown

and it happened almost overnight.

People were being taken to airports.

There were people who were packing

their belongings and leaving their homes,

with virtually no explanation

to their family members

as to where they were going

or why they were going.

Fred Lewis came home and found that

his wife had taken their seven children

and gone to Guyana,

along with all their possessions.

My wife had gone over

three months prior.

And I was waiting

on pins and needles,

and I was talking to her probably

twice a week on the hand radio

and Leona Collier came up,

Ok, Eugene its your time,

youre going over.

Coming into Jonestown,

you see a guard at the front gate

and youre all excited,

youre going down this road.

The trailer comes to a stop

and then you can see the wooden

pathway that leads to the pavilion.

And youre just...

you want to run, but you know,

you just try, Alright Im gonna be cool.

And just as you reach

the edge of the pavilion,

people started rushing you

that you knew, you know.

My wife was there. Havent seen

my mother in over a year or so.

And Im just hugging people

and its just... its like, I have arrived

and everything is

going to be okay now.

I have never been so totally

happy or fulfilled in my life.

I cant begin to describe it.

You could sit here

and talk all day long and no words

could describe the peace, the beauty,

the sense of accomplishment and

responsibility and camaraderie thats here.

Its overwhelming, it really is.

You cant describe it.

You know, its just such an exciting time.

Everything was new and unique and...

and just fun. You know,

we just had fun with it as it grew.

I just loved that

we created what we ate,

that we did all these jobs.

What you think about your friends

back down in the States?

You think they should be here?

Do you want to share with them

this morning? Speak up!

- I wished I could, share with them,

- Can you do it?

- but they wont listen to me.

- Would you do it? Wont listen to you, huh?

When you dont have anything,

you own Jonestown

you are part of Jonestown.

You were a shareholder of Jonestown

if you were African American.

It gave them the opportunity to...

to really be a part of creating a utopia.

I think that Jim Jones

took his group down there

because he was afraid

to face the publicity

and answer the questions

here in this country.

I dont think that he feels confident

having people talk to their relatives.

I think the only way he can survive

and sustain what he started

is to isolate all his followers

from this country and from their families.

The Concerned Relatives

were the ex-members

who wanted other family members,

still in the church,

to know they could leave.

They wanted them to feel

that there was an outside world,

that Jones was wrong about telling people

they could never leave the church,

and that they would be

treated badly in the real world.

The Concerned Relatives prompted

FCCinvestigation of Peoples Temple.

They organized letter-writing campaigns

to public officials, to members of Congress.

They were incredibly effective

in mobilizing government

and media interest

in Peoples Temple.

He was talking integration.

He was talking helping people.

He was talking

better this and better that.

What about now?

Whats your impression now?

My impression now,

that those are fronts for him.

I think hes gone crazy.

When Jim Jones wasnt there,

things tended to be a little bit lighter.

You know, people would be

dancing or singing.

There would be music

in different cottages.

But when Jones was present,

it was very, very dark.

It was almost like a dark cloud.

In Jonestown,

there was a speaker system

and only Jim spoke on it.

And it went twenty-four hours a day

and he would tape himself.

So, in the middle of the night,

all through the night,

his voice was talking to you.

The United States is calling for

the removal of all Blacks and Indians.

So is England.

They want to have their immigrant Black,

Indian population removed in six months.

We had no other radio or T.V.

or communication with parents

or any kind of, you know, update

that could show us, really,

that theres a whole other thing going on

besides what Jim was interpreting for us.

I make my stand clear.

Give us our liberty

or give us our death.

No matter where you were,

you could hear.

You could hear it in your...

in your bunk at night.

You could hear it

when youre in the outhouse.

You could hear it when

you were working in the field.

You...

you could hear it all the time.

At least on those terms,

we choose our death

and no one chooses it for us.

Dont try to take any of our children.

There was this pervasive sense

of being under attack in Jonestown.

He told them that things were

just getting worse in the United States,

they couldnt go back home.

And not only that, but these

forces were traveling to Guyana

to destroy them there.

You cant know how much

of a conspiracy there is

in the U.S. these days.

Maybe its economics?

Who knows what it is?

Im not able to say.

But I do know its real.

Its obvious that Martin Luther King

was murdered by conspiracy,

Malcolm X, Senator Kennedy

Over the summer of 1978,

all of us noticed that

Jim was seemed to be getting sicker.

His harangues over the loudspeaker

were getting more and more frantic,

and really just sounding

more and more insane.

He had gotten to the place that

even his voice was becoming slurred,

and he said it was because

the nurse was giving him

the wrong medications.

But yet still, everyday

it was getting worse and worse.

Every night, at some point,

his voice would come over

the loudspeaker and hed say,

Im sending somebody out tonight,

somebody you know,

somebody you trust

and theyre going to act like

they want to leave.

But this is a loyalty test

and you need to turn them in.

A father would turn in a son.

A husband would turn in a wife.

A small child would turn in a parent.

There was no freedom to express

to one another what was going on,

because everything was suspect.

The most forbidden thing

to express was to leave.

He had a real issue with separation.

People could not leave him.

He took it as a betrayal

to the cause, and to him personally.

He said, I really want to get away

from him. By Christmas, I will be gone.

By Christmas, do you want to be gone?

By Christmas, do you want to be gone?!

By Christmas, do you want to be gone?!!

I would ask you, could I go home

and make a trip to see my people?

I have the power

to send you home by Christmas,

but its not on Transworld Airlines.

Its blasphemy! Its blasphemy

to talk about going back

when you have not been

given any approval!

Do you want to go home?

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes