Salon: Jim Jones' Sinister Grip on San Fransisco; Harvey Milk...

[MinM]

Tuesday, May 1, 2012 07:45 AM EDT
Jim Jones’ sinister grip on San Francisco

How the Peoples Temple cult leader ensnared Harvey Milk and other progressive icons
By David Talbot

Left: Former San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk. Right: The Rev. Jim Jones, pastor of Peoples Temple in San Francisco (Credit: AP)

“Season of the Witch,” the new book by Salon founder David Talbot, tells the story of the wild and bloody birth of “San Francisco values.” The following excerpt – Part 1 in a three-part series -- recounts one of the darker dramas before the ultimate triumph of those values.

Jim Jones, the strange and charismatic leader of Peoples Temple, proved a master at politically wiring San Francisco in the mid-1970s. The driven preacher had begun his climb up the political pyramid by planting roots in the Fillmore district, the city’s devastated black neighborhood. Jones moved into the Fillmore at its most vulnerable moment. Urban renewal czar Justin Herman – the Robert Moses of San Francisco — had “literally destroyed the neighborhood,” observed community activist Hannibal Williams, “ people were desperate for solutions, something to follow. Jim Jones was another solution. He had a charismatic personality that won the hearts and souls of people. And people followed him to hell. That’s where Jim Jones went. That’s where he took the people who followed him.”

Jones’s flock, ignored and scorned by society, was electrified by the preacher’s vision of a new Eden. Everybody was exalted in his services, even the lowliest recovering drunks and addicts. “He made us feel special, like something bigger than ourselves,” said one temple member. “Total equality, no rich or poor, no races,” said another. “We were alive in those services,” testified one more. “They had life, soul power.”

Jones — an oddball and renegade his entire life, someone who never felt at home in his own skin — had found his identity by taking on a black persona. He saw himself following in the footsteps of Malcolm and Martin, leading “his” people out of bondage and into the promised land...

http://www.salon.com/2012/05/01/jim_jones_sinister_grip_on_san_francisco/singleton/

[rpannier]

1. Interesting Read

I'll probably buy the book
I lived near San Francisco in the 70's. I remember all the players from that time

[No Elephants]

2. Jones was not an "oddball," ffs. He was about as sick crazy as it gets/

[formercia]

3. Another Social Engineering experiment gone wrong

Methinks.