American as Cherry Pie-Peoples Temple and Violence in America

This post is based upon a chapter in a book I read titled "American as Cherry Pie". The chapter was from a book called Millenialism, Persecution and Violence:Historical Case. This chapter of the book was written by Rebecca Moore, the sister of one of the members of the Peoples Temple that comitted suicide on 19th November 1978. She discusses the context in which the Peoples temple developed and the events which played a part in leading to the tradgedy that occurred in Guyana. She discusses the importance of understanding the events in light of the growing injustice against Peoples Temple and the growing injustices taking place within Peoples Temple, and believes that the growing external threats that they encountered escalated the violence internally within the organisation.

The group had suffered harassment in Redwood Valley from locals firing shots in the area and there were frequent incidents of racial harassment from right wing groups as well as the Nation of Islam.

These harassments served to further solidify the beliefs they already had, that the outside world was an evil place full of racism,classism, greed and selfishness. It was these very factors that they sought to escape through their involment with the Peoples Temple.

The harrassment they received came from many different sources, but it was the medias' sensationalised coverage of Jones and the church that did most damage to the Peoples Temple. The medias' coverage was highly influential in bringing about state and federal investigations into the church.

The church found itself under scrutiny from several agencies including the U.S customes service (despite insuuficient evidence to justify issue of a search warrant), the federal communications Commission (who were logging their use of amateur radio waves, and trying to deliberately find a way to ban the church using them),the social security administration(went to extreme lengths to prevent fraud on behalf of Peoples Temple) and the IRS (investigated Peoples temple for receiving income that was taxable and not declaring it, although it was discovered this wasn't in fact an official audit, but had been influenced by negative publicty).

On top of these problems, the church was being sued by ex members such as Tim Stoen who had previously been the church lawayer and was now involved in a custody battle for a child that he had legally signed over to Jones on the basis Jones was the father.

So the church found itself under attack from various fronts. Its financial status was under threat, its' communications were being disrupted, its position in Guyana precarious and internally it was under threat with prominent members leaving and sometimes sueing.

It's not difficult to understand the feelings of persecution that Jones and the group felt in light of these facts. It makes me question quite seriously whether the government and society itself played a major part in the death of the group members. There's no doubt in my mind that the events were handled very badly and that they only further served to fuel the feelings of paranoia and persecution that Jones felt, and ultimately probably contributing to the tragic events of No 18th 1978.