Anniversary of the People's Temple massacre
SF1st reminds us that this is the 36th anniversary of the Jonestown massacre. Let's fill in some of the backstory on the cult's time in San Francisco.
From New West magazine in 1977:
Jim Jones counts among his friends several of California’s well-known public officials. San Francisco mayor George Moscone has made several visits to Jones’s San Francisco temple, on Geary Street[sic], as have the city’s district attorney Joe Freitas and sheriff Richard Hongisto. And Governor Jerry Brown has visited at least once. Also, Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley has been a guest at Jones’s Los Angeles temple.Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally went so far as to visit Jones’s 27,000-acre agricultural station in Guyana, South America, and he pronounced himself impressed. What’s more, when Walter Mondale came campaigning for the vice-presidency in San Francisco last fall, Jim Jones was one of the few people invited aboard his chartered jet for a private visit. Last December Jones was appointed to head the city’s Housing Authority Commission.
Willie Brown and Jim Jones in 1976 four years after the Kinsolving articles in the Examiner Tom Kinsolving on his father's expose of Jim Jones:
When New West magazine published "Inside People's Temple" in 1977, it triggered the cult's exodus from San Francisco to Guyana. From that article: The source of Jones’s political clout is not very difficult to divine. As one politically astute executive puts it: “He controls votes.” And voters. During San Francisco’s run-off election for mayor in December of 1975, some 150 temple members walked precincts to get out the vote for George Moscone, who won by a slim 4,000 votes.
Supervisor Harvey Milk was still trying to help Jim Jones months before the massacre:
The custody case in which Milk was encouraging President Carter's intervention was successful. Jones was allowed to keep the child, who was murdered in the massacre later that year.
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Labels: California, City Government, Democratic Party, Examiner, History, Mendoland, Right and Left, Willie Brown
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