Peoples Temple Moves to California
Cold War Influences Jim Jones to Relocate Church
Jim Jones left Indianapolis with his flock in tow largely due societal pressure related to his racially mixed congregation. However, where Jones would relocate his Peoples Temple family would depend upon the charismatic preacher’s fear of nuclear cataclysm resulting from Cold War tension between the U.S. and Soviet Union.
Jim Jones and the Cuban Missile Crisis
Such fears were quite common during the Peoples Temple’s transition from Indianapolis to California. According to former temple members, an article in Esquire that detailed the ten best locations for a person to survive a nuclear war inspired Jones to move his family to one of the listed locations: Belo Horizante, Brazil. Also, Jones sent a scout to observe Eureka California, which was also on Esquire’s list.
Jones’s fear of a nuclear holocaust, presumably his reason for leaving the U.S., became exacerbated during the Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962. David Chidester, author of Salvation and Suicide: Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and Jonestown, describes Jones’s reaction to the 1962 showdown, “… the conviction that American economic and political interests had brought the world to the edge of thermonuclear war intensified his animosity towards the U.S.” The Cold War crises served to reinforce his fears of a nuclear exchange, and also to ingrain in him a profound mistrust of the U.S. government and the capitalist system.
Jim Jones Returns to Move the Peoples Temple West
Following a visit with his scout in California, Jones decided to move his flock west. In 1965 Jones, his family, and sixty-five other families moved to Redwood Valley in Ukiah, California, on the outskirts of Eureka. Their services were held in the homes of members and rented spaces until 1969, when The Peoples Temple Redwood Valley Complex, also known as Happy Acres, was completed.
Happy Acres was an isolated 40 acre tract of land, and would eventually include, “…Jones’s home, the Temple meeting place, a swimming pool (which served for both recreation and baptisms), senior citizen homes, a child care center, and ranch,” according to Chidester. Members whom did not reside at Happy Acres lived in communal homes in nearby communities, many of which were purchased by the church.
A communal lifestyle was not a foreign concept to members of the Peoples Temple. Many congregants believed strongly in the church as a force for social change, and willingly gave their money and property to the Temple. Before leaving for California, members saw their donations in action in the form of soup kitchens, homeless shelters, and free childcare. Indeed, according to an article in the December 4, 1978 issue of Time, such charitable actions led the mayor of Indianapolis to name Jones, “…the first full-time director of the Indianapolis human rights commission.”
Charity Provides Jim Jones with a Façade of Propriety
Once they were safe from nuclear destruction and operational in Ukiah, Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple picked up where they left off in Indianapolis, with most of their charity directed at the needy in nearby San Francisco. By early 1969 the Peoples Temple expanded into San Francisco and Los Angeles, where Jones, along with his expanding congregation, became a political force. It would be years before anyone would raise any suspicions regarding behind-the-scenes malfeasance at the Peoples Temple.
Sources:
David Chidester, Salvation and Suicide: Jim Jones, The Peoples Temple, and Jonestown, 2d ed., rev. Religion in North America, eds. Catherine L Albanese & Stephen J. Stein, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003).
Marshall Kilduff and Phil Tracy. “Inside Peoples Temple.” New West Magazine. 1 Aug. 1997. Reprinted at Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple – Primary Resources. SanDiego State University. Dec. 2006. 27 Feb. 2008. http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/AboutJonestown/PrimarySources/primary_resources.htm.
“Messiah from the Midwest.” Time. 4 Dec. 1978. 27 Feb. 2008.
http://www.time.com/time/archive/printout/0,23657,912250,00.html.
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