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I asked myself that question after recently learning that the majority of People's Temple were African-American. So I googled "Jim Jones White Savior" and I found this interview: Jim Jones, deadly white savior: The tragic legacy of the Jonestown massacre.
It's an interview with author Sikivu Hutchinson who wrote a novel about the Jonestown massacre, White Nights, Black Paradise.
I think her words here in particular are very important:
The truth of Jonestown has been lost because it’s been demonized to a certain extent. The impression was that you had these “zombie-esque acolytes running over there and bowing down to this white man.” It just creates a very sordid and unsavory picture. Also, it took place in San Francisco, a city that has always been mythicized as a white space. You had a white pastor, so many white bohemian liberal-to-radical members involved quite prominently and that becomes a big part of the ethos. That this is a “free love” church, that it was a new age-y kind of confab, when it’s really coming from the heart of Pentecostal, charismatic spirituality.
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