How Did Jim Jones Contribute To Suicide

On November 18, 1978, more than 900 people were led by Jim Jones to a mass murder-suicide in Jonestown, Guyana.

Jim Jones was as a notorious cult leader. He was the founder of the People’s Temple religious cult. To gain more followers Jones promised those people that if they followed him he would build a utopia. Jones first started to get recognition in 1952 when he joined the ministry. He got a job as a student pastor at the Somerset Methodist Church in a poor predominantly white neighborhood in Indianapolis. Jones started to make a name for himself in the state as a healer and evangelist. Jones branched out on his own, in 1955 he formed the Wings of Deliverance church. Which later it became the known as the Peoples Temple. In the mid-1960s,

By this time Jones started to be more paranoid and disturbed and he moved the Peoples Temple compound there with about 1000, followers. This little compound of Jones was named Jonestown. You would think that with that many followers he would treat them right so they don’t leave but Jones actually treated the compound as a prison camp. Jones followers were given little food and they weren’t allowed to leave or else. Jones was afraid that his followers would plot something against him. He started having suicide drills. Jones subculture started to fall apart internally. His followers were woken up early in the middle of the night. At first with the suicide drills Jones would trick his people. They would receive a cup with a red liquid in it almost like kool-aid. Jones would tell his people that the liquid contained poison. This was to see how loyal they were to Jones. After those people drink the liquid they would told that it didn’t contain any poison. They were also told that they passed the loyalty test. On November 18, 1978, Ryan toured Jonestown with a television crew and he invited anyone to leave the compound with him. In all there were about 16 people who step up and said they wanted to leave with Ryan. Too bad their dream was chattered. That afternoon Ryan and his crew were killed by followers of Jim Jones. Those followers were told to ambush and kill Ryan and his crew. Later