Shelby Donaldson and Myla Brown

1-14-15

2b

Jonestown Citations

 

Brinton, Maurice. “Suicide for Socialism? Brinton on Jonestown Massacre, 1978.” Libcom.org 25 July. 2005.

Maurice Brinton gives us insight on the monstrosity of the Jonestown Massacre and how Jim Jones tricked his followers into doing slave labor, being sexually manipulated and much more horrible things. He also takes us back to when Jim Jones was a kid and was already developing radical tendencies and manipulating his way into situations and organizations with his persuasive powers. He tells us of how Jim Jones started to emotionally crumble and how he grew very depressed and drug addicted. He grew extremely paranoid of outside forces due to the drugs and members wanting to leave the failed utopia.

 

Ross, Devin. “Culture, Charisma, and Peoples Temple.” Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple.  16 Nov. 2008.

Devin introduces us to the day of the mass suicide and tells us of the defecting members, the corrupted leader and the many innocent lives that were lost on that faithful day. He tells us of the brave congressman Leo Ryan who lost his life to help the innocent, scared individuals escape the utopia gone wrong. Devin tells of how Jim Jones laundered money through the Peoples Temple to provide for himself and stole money from his already struggling members. How he got all of this was through his false sermons and persuasive use of words.

 

Susan Donaldson James & Christina Lopez “Jonestown Massacre: Survivors Wrestle with Guilt, Shame.” via Good Morning America, 18 Nov. 2012.

Survivors of the massacre tell of their horrid ordeal and how they deal with the guilt of leaving their family members behind to save their self or someone else. Like in the case of Leslie Wagner Wilson who had to leave with the defecting members to save the only family she had left her son. She had to leave behind her husband, mother, sister and brother to save what was left of her life. Leslie was happy she was alive but she had to deal with drug abuse, depression and many failed marriages until she got back on her feet, years later.

 

Rebecca Moore “A Witness to Tragedy and Resurrection” via Jonestown.edu

4 Mar. 2013.

This article tells of the minister who lost two daughters and a grandson in the Jonestown massacre. He preached a sermon about the Peoples Temple on the day of the tragedy and in his sermon he spoke of his loved ones as dead, even though it wasn’t confirmed yet. The sermon was publicly published and received a positive response due to the religious terms because it better helped the public cope with the tragedy.

 

Thad Morgan “Remembering the Jonestown Massacre, 35 Years Later” Nov 18. 2013.

The article tells that Jim Jones was able to convince his followers to participate in the mass suicide by telling them they would get destroyed by the CIA and the money hungry American capitalists. Jones encouraged the minorities to join his church and receive “healing”, they willing accepted due to the fact they were getting nothing but rejection due to the new laws at the time.

 

Rebecca Moore “The Death of Michael Prokes” via Jonestown.edu 21 Mar 2014

Michael Prokes committed suicide on March 13, 1979 and in his suicide note he said he didn’t commit suicide due to sadness or guilt but to show what Jonestown caused. In his own words he said “If my death doesn’t prompt another look at what brought about the end of Jonestown, then life wasn’t worth living anyway”.

 

Dr. Gary Maynard “Jim Jones and Narcissistic Personality Disorder (Part IV): The Violent Stage of NPD” 24 Nov. 2013.

Jim Jones being arrogant, vain and abusive is just some of signs of NPD and this behavior ultimately led to his demise and his loyal followers. During his final years, he was entering into the final stage of NPD and that was the stage were the person suffering from illness, life started to spin out of control. They lost most of their power and became increasingly more and more violent.

 

Don Beck “A World unto Itself: Life in the States after Jim Jones Moved to Guyana” Nov 14.2013.

After some Peoples Temple followers left for Guyana they still organized for other to join them in Guyana and for others to bring their belongings and resources.

 

Rose Wunrow “The psychological massacre: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple: An Investigation

There’s an argument that the Jonestown incident can’t be seen as massacre because some of the deaths were voluntary. But really it would be a mass murder because Jim Jones used psychological exploitation to help demoralize and control them.

 

Fiona Steel “Jonestown Massacre: A ‘Reason’ to Die” Nov 6. 2013

The year leading up to Congressman Leo J. Ryan death, he was introduced to the article “Scared Too Long” and that convinced Leo to take a trip to Jonestown with a camera team. He was able to get a few survivors from Jonestown but was murder with 4 others at the airstrip.