THE MASS SUICIDE OF JONESTOWN
THE MASS SUICIDE OF JONESTOWN ON NOVEMBER 18, 1978. On November 18, 1978, 913 people died in an agricultural colony near the village of Port Kaiutuma, including men, women, the elderly and children. They were all part of the "Temple of Peoples", a cult that had developed around the American preacher Jim Jones. What happened that afternoon is still considered today as the biggest mass suicide in history. James Warren Jones was born on May 13, 1931 in the small town of Crete, Indiana. His father was a WWI veteran, his mother a union worker, both parents were not believers, but Jim equally soon became a member of the Pentecostal community. He was attracted to the very "physical" and concrete way of worship of the Pentecostals. At just 16, he preached the gospel of equality before God in the black suburbs of Richmond, Indiana, where he moved with his mother after the separation of his parents. At the end of the 1940s, racial segregation was very close, and it was estima...