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1-19 of 19
- Jim Jones was born during the Great Depression. He was the only son of James Thurman Warren Jones Sr. (1887-1951) and Lynetta Putnam (1902-1977). His father was an alcoholic Klansman and he claimed his mother was part Cherokee Indian. He spent most of his formative years in conservative rural Indiana. His father struggled to earn a living as a mystic fortune teller. His parents separated in 1948 and he went to live with his mother in Richmond, Indiana. Jones also worked as an orderly at a local hospital. He got married young, to a nurse 4 years his senior, and adopted 3 children of diverse ethnic backgrounds.
Jones began working as a Methodist minister in Indianapolis in the early 1950 decade. In 1954, when he claimed he had met God on a train ride near Philadelphia, he was defrocked. The charismatic leader then founded his own gathering - the Community National Unity Church. By 1955 he had renamed it the People's Temple Full Gospel Church. He set up a soup kitchen, gave away groceries and clothes to the poor, and established two nursing homes, while preaching messages of apostolic socialism and racial equality. Secretly, he also joined the Communist party on the side. He was appointed director of the Indianapolis Human Rights Commission in 1961. Jones began a dubious path as a "spiritual healer" by planting actors among his believers and miraculously 'healing' them. Jones was getting richer and more popular.
In the early 1960s, during the height of the Cold War, Jones had a vision of apocalyptic destruction. Jones took the vision seriously and decided to move his congregation to Ukiah, California, in the Redwood Valley region north of San Francisco. This area was believed to be one of 9 places on earth that would be safe during a global nuclear war. He then moved to San Francisco's Fillmore district in 1965. Over the next 10 years, his 'flock' of believers reached a peak of 3,000. Jones could be heard on regular radio broadcasts over KFAX radio in California. However, there were occasional bizarre behaviors as well: in April of 1968, when Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated, Jones staged a fake attempt on his own life.
Jones received several humanitarian awards in Northern California for his work with the poor. In 1976, he was appointed to the San Francisco Housing Authority by the Mayor George Moscone for his commitment to social activism. However Jones was becoming more and more of a dictator. He demanded sexual favors from some young women, was the only person who could decide if a couple in his congregation could get married, and often separated children from their parents. In 1973, eight close aides defected from his camp and revealed these details to the press, including allegations of misuse of church money. Very soon after, Jones had begun making plans to move his congregation to the socialist nation of Guyana in South America. By 1974, fifteen of Jones' followers had negotiated a lease for 27,000 acres on Guyana's western border with Venezuela, and began clearing the jungle for what would become the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, or "Jonestown." Jones eventually relocated to Guyana in July 1977. In December 1977, his mother Lynetta Jones died at Jonestown.
In 1978, a group of ex-members calling themselves the Committee of Concerned Relatives published literature that likened Jonestown to a concentration camp, complete with torture. Jones began teaching his followers about mass suicide and held practice drills to test his members' loyalty for the "White Night". In November 1978, U.S. House Representative Leo J. Ryan visited the compound and sought to bring back several defectors, including an ex-member's child. Leo's entourage, along with fifteen defectors, were ambushed and killed by Jones' people on the airstrip as they attempted to leave. The next day, the entire community of 914 'followers' (including 276 children) drank a deadly potion of Fla-Vor Aid laced with cyanide poison. Jones' wife was among them. After the mass suicide of his followers, Jones and a close aide shot themselves. - Marceline Jones was born on 8 January 1927 in Richmond, Indiana, USA. She was married to Jim Jones. She died on 18 November 1978 in Jonestown, Guyana.
- Camera and Electrical Department
Robinson had worked for The Examiner for three years when he got the assignment to travel to Guyana with reporter Tim Reiterman, now a senior assistant metro editor at the Los Angeles Times. Robinson had already taken pictures that won him admiration: getting in the right spot to capture Jimmy Carter carrying his own luggage; a hijacker and his hostages surrounded by FBI agents; victims of a tram accident at Squaw Valley. Among his own favorites were shots of football, baseball and skating.
After an arduous journey and delays in Georgetown, Guyana's capital, the group arrived at the small airstrip in Port Kaituma, then continued by flatbed truck to Jonestown. Robinson made pictures of the smiling faces at a celebratory dinner, of Ryan addressing Jones' followers in front of a sign reading "Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it." He photographed Jones caressing the chin of a little boy he claimed was his son, he snapped kids dancing, a baby sleeping on its mother's shoulder and children in the nursery.
And as he was leaving, he took the last pictures of Ryan alive. The congressman's shirt is flecked with the blood of a man who tried to stab him and was injured as he was being disarmed. Ryan looks exhausted, tense.
The photographs show Robinson's knack for being in the right spot, for catching what is essential. Part of their impact also comes from the sheer nature of photography, its power to capture what the naked eye cannot see alone. There was something horribly wrong at Jonestown, something Robinson would not live to see on his film.
Shortly afterward, Robinson himself was shot dead. A photograph shows him lying on the ground near Ryan, NBC correspondent Don Harris, NBC cameraman Bob Brown and temple defector Patricia Parks, all slaughtered as they waited to board a plane. This time, the picture was taken by Reiterman, himself injured in the attack. Four rolls of Robinson's film were transported home. Another 35 seized by police in Guyana as evidence were later recovered. Some were printed for the first time for the Veterans Building exhibit.- Actress
- Costume Designer
- Costume and Wardrobe Department
Odette Myrtil was born on 28 June 1898 in Paris, France. She was an actress and costume designer, known for Dodsworth (1936), Kitty Foyle (1940) and The Pied Piper (1942). She was married to Bob Adams and Stanley Logan. She died on 18 November 1978 in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, USA.- Leo Ryan was a Democratic Congressman. He served with the U.S. Navy from 1943-46 as a submariner, and graduated from Nebraska's Creighton University with an A.B. and an M.S. He was a high school history teacher, later serving as a South San Francisco city councilman from 1956 to 1962, then was elected mayor of South San Francisco. Less than a year later, he was elected to the California State Assembly, and in 1972, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for the 11th Congressional District of California.
In 1978, reports regarding the Peoples Temple, led by cult leader Jim Jones, began to filter out stories of abuse and human rights violations. Ryan decided to go to Jonestown, the Peoples Temple's main enclave, to investigate.
In November 1978, Ryan and his staff arrived in Georgetown, Guyana. For three days, Ryan negotiated with Jones' legal counsel and held meetings with embassy and Guyanese officials. Finally, Ryan and several aides boarded a small plane to the Jonestown compound. Initially, the welcome at Jonestown was warm, but after only a few hours Ryan and his entourage began receiving notes and requests to leave. The next morning, Ryan and his aides continued their interviews, and met a woman who secretly expressed her wish to leave Jonestown with her family. The group wishing to leave departed Jonestown and arrived at the airstrip. Peoples Members then ambushed the group and opened fire, killing Congressman Ryan and four others, wounding another nine.
The following day, the Guyanese army, ordered to arrest Jones and disarm Jonestown, cut through the jungle to reach the settlement, and discovered all 900 of its inhabitants dead. Leo Ryan's body was returned to the United States and is now interred in Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, California. He was posthumously awarded a Congressional Gold Medal. He is the only member of Congress to have been killed in the line of duty. - Cinematographer
Brown was the NBC-TV cameraman who accompanied Rep. Leo Ryan as the Peninsula congressman led a team to Jonestown to investigate reports that Jones' quasi-religious compound there was holding people captive through coercion and mind control.
As the half-dozen gunmen sent by cult madman Jim Jones bounded off a tractor-trailer, rifles in hand. As they aimed at him. As he took a bullet to the leg. And as he fell to the ground, the wounded leg crumpling under him.
Within seconds he was dead with a final shot to the head. And the film in his camera, shakily showing the attack that ended his life and those of four others, including the first U.S. congressman ever to be killed in the line of duty, became one of the most grimly riveting video clips in history.
As a camera operator from San Francisco to Los Angeles throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Brown river-rafted with President Jimmy Carter, filmed war protests in Berkeley, and covered so many bloody horrors, including the Juan Corona serial murders, that he earned the nickname "Gory Brown,"
In 1970, they both went to Vietnam so Brown could cover the war, and that's when he was shot out of a helicopter. He was filming a battle in Cambodia, and when the chopper took rounds it pitched to one side, and he plunged 40 feet to a field of thick grass and cracked his neck and collarbone, Bob just picked himself up and ran to a landing zone.
Four years later when police got into a shootout in Los Angeles with SLA members who had earlier kidnapped newspaper heiress Patty Hearst, whose family founded the corporation that owns The Chronicle. As the two sides blasted off hundreds of rounds, Brown found himself on his belly under the fire line - shooting footage, just like in Vietnam.- Patricia Parks was born on 29 April 1934 in Springfield, Ohio, USA. She was married to Jerry Parks. She died on 18 November 1978 in Port Kaituma, Guyana.
- Don Harris was born on 8 September 1936 in Vidalia, Georgia, USA. He was married to Shirley LaRue Harned. He died on 18 November 1978 in Port Kaituma, Guyana.
- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Dhirendranath Ganguly was born on 26 March 1893 in Calcutta, Bengal Presidency, British India. He was a director and actor, known for Kamanar Aagun (1930), Takay Ki Na Hay (1931) and Shesh Nibedan (1948). He was married to Premika Devi. He died on 18 November 1978 in Calcutta, West Bengal, India.- Actress
Lillian Taylor was born on 7 December 1905 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. She was an actress. She died on 18 November 1978 in Jonestown, Guyana.- Costume and Wardrobe Department
- Actress
Renita Reachi was born on 27 November 1914 in Louisiana, USA. She was an actress, known for The Lucy Show (1962), Here's Lucy (1968) and Mame (1974). She died on 18 November 1978 in Encino, California, USA.- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Lennie Tristano was born on 19 March 1919 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He is known for The Sopranos (1999), Fearing in Sarajevo (2019) and It's in the Groove (1949). He died on 18 November 1978 in New York City, New York, USA.- Mariya Kravchunovskaya was born on 11 October 1898 in Moscow, Russian Empire [now Russia]. She was an actress, known for Operation 'Y' & Other Shurik's Adventures (1965), God 19-yy (1938) and Zhenikh s togo sveta (1958). She died on 18 November 1978 in Moscow, Russian SFSR, USSR [now Russia].
- Vera Shershnyova was born on 17 September 1906 in Odessa, Odessa uyezd, Kherson Governorate, Russian Empire [now Odessa Oblast, Ukraine]. She was an actress, known for Two Soldiers (1943), Shturmovye nochi (1931) and Pravo ottsov (1931). She died on 18 November 1978 in Moscow, RSFSR, USSR [now Russia].
- Jill Naismith was born on 24 February 1907 in Islington, London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Crowning Glory (1936). She was married to Schubert Ely Smith. She died on 18 November 1978 in Costa Mesa, California, USA.
- Producer
- Writer
Walter McGraw was born on 30 August 1919 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. He was a producer and writer, known for World Wide '60 (1960), Chevron Hall of Stars (1956) and Take Two (1962). He died on 18 November 1978 in New York, New York, USA.- Don Sly was born on 3 March 1936 in Oakland, California, USA. He died on 18 November 1978 in Jonestown, Guyana.
- Maria Katsaris was born on 9 June 1953 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. He died on 18 November 1978 in Jonestown, Guyana.
- Lee Jouglard was born on 12 January 1921. He was an actor, known for Headpin Hints (1955) and Bowling Time (1956). He died on 18 November 1978.