Trivia

Responsible for the largest mass suicide in human history (909 dead). It was the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate action until the September 11 attacks in 2001.

He was a supporter of Harvey Milk and his election to San Francisco city council.

He used to set up stings to catch restaurants refusing to serve black customers and wrote to American Nazi leaders and then leaked their responses to the media. When Jones was accidentally placed in the black ward of a hospital after a collapse in 1961, he refused to be moved; he began to make the beds and empty the bed pans of black patients. Political pressures resulting from Jones' actions caused hospital officials to desegregate the wards.

He killed stray animals as a child and occasionally held funerals for them.

While Jones quoted and used the Bible extensively, visitors to the Jones household were surprised to find no Bibles or religious pictures anywhere in the house, and the family never said grace at mealtimes.

He was a voracious reader as a child who studied men such as Adolf Hitler, Karl Marx, Joseph Stalin, Mahatma Gandhi and Mao Zedong, taking note of the strengths and weaknesses of each.

He was obsessed with death from childhood.

Subject of the song "Jimmie Jones" by The Vapors.

His voice recorded during his final moments in the infamous death tape in the mass suicide of his cult followers is used in parts of the song "Jonestown" by Concrete Blonde.

Is portrayed by Powers Boothe in Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones (1980).

His exact religious faith is something of a mystery. Despite being a Pentecostal pastor and preaching "apostolic socialism," he later preached that Christianity had lied to its followers. At various points he admitted to being an atheist and agnostic, though he declared himself a prophet, an avatar for various religious figures, or a god himself so he wasn't truly an atheist.

Ordained as a Fundamentalist minister, he later joined with the Disciples of Christ denomination and started his own congregation, the People's Temple Christian Church, which later turned into a cult.

The long-empty building (on the corner of Geary and Steiner in San Francisco) where the People's Temple held their services was badly damaged during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. It was eventually torn down. A post office now stands in its place.

Jones chose the Ukiah Valley in northern California as the People's Temple's new home, after reading a January 1962 Esquire magazine article titled "Nine Places to Hide", which detailed the safest places to live after a nuclear war. He first investigated Belo Horizonte, Brazil, also described in the article, living there for over a year with his family, but decided to return to the United States.

Had some association with Father Divine, and his ministry, and later with Divine's widow; he was hoping to merge their Peace Mission with the People's Temple. Asked his followers to call him "Father" during this period.

Attended and graduated from Richmond High School in Richmond, Indiana in 1948. Attended Indiana University Bloomington in 1949 but dropped out after a few months. Received a degree in secondary education from Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana (1961).

He worked as director of the Human Rights Commission in Indianapolis and was instrumental in the racial integration of churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the police department and the Methodist Hospital at Indiana University.

Adopted father of Jim Jones Jr. (full real name: James Thurman Warren Jones III).