Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple Page #4

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But behind that, I think it was to

gather more members for the Temple.

I decided not to go to Vietnam,

and I was just at the point of

what am I going to do with myself?

I heard Jim Jones was

going to be coming to Philadelphia,

and coming to

Benjamin Franklin High School.

And I went Wednesday night

and I listened to him,

and I was impressed by

how it was such an interracial group

and people were really happy.

You got nothing to lose.

Who else is going to stand

and look you in the face and say,

Come and Ill give you a job.

Come and Ill give you a home.

Come and Ill give you a bed?

But Ive got nothing but a pension.

Go and leave your pension behind,

who else will tell you that?

Wholl tell you,

Ill put you on that bus tomorrow?

I heard Jim Jones talking

about equality among races,

what its like living in California,

in the Redwood Valley,

the good works that theyre doing.

Things that, like,

I wanted to get involved with,

but didnt even know

where to make an entre.

And all of a sudden,

the answer was there.

Somebody is gonna get on the

freedom train in Philadelphia!

He was there for three evenings,

and the third evening

I went off on the bus

and came to California.

When I joined Peoples Temple

in the spring of 1966,

there were exactly

eighty-one members.

Five years later,

an extended family of eighty people

had become

an organization of thousands.

Peoples Temple

really was a black church.

It was led by a white minister,

but in terms of the worship service,

commitment to the social gospel,

its membership,

it functioned completely

like a black church.

He talked black.

He really understood it.

He understood how it was

to be treated differently.

And thats from his roots

coming out of Lynn.

When people heard Jim,

they didnt look upon him

as being a white preacher, you know.

People didnt look at Jim

as being white. He was not white.

He was just their preacher.

You going to go to Texas with me

when I have that campaign?

I was just wondering whether

I could go or not. I would like to go.

Why of course youd go,

you went to Mexico with me.

As older people joined,

it took a year or so

and hed convince the people that

he was doing so much in the community

and so why not rather than

just tithe your twenty percent,

why not sell your home,

give the money to the church?

And that is what people began to do.

Now in this church,

what have we done in a short time?

We have four senior citizens homes

that are the most innovating,

the most beautiful you want to see.

They had their own rooms,

they had every need taken care of,

they had their food provided.

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