Who Was Jim Jones
Jim Jones was an American preacher and the founder of the Peoples Temple, a religious and political movement that grew rapidly in the 1960s and 1970s. He promoted interracial equality and communal living, attracting followers from disadvantaged communities.
What Was the Peoples Temple
The Peoples Temple was a religious organization led by Jim Jones that combined Christian teachings with socialist ideas. At its peak, the group had thousands of members in the United States and operated a settlement called Jonestown in Guyana.
The Jonestown Tragedy
In November 1978, a mass death occurred at Jonestown, Guyana, after U.S. Representative Leo Ryan and others were killed during a visit. More than 900 people died in a combination of violence, forced ingestion of cyanide, and other causes, an event often referred to as a mass murder-suicide. The tragedy led to widespread scrutiny of cults and high-control groups. For more background, see the Britannica overview of the Jonestown massacre.
