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Jadakiss
Jadakiss in June 2011
Background information
Birth name	Jason Phillips
Born	(1975-05-27) May 27, 1975 (age 37) Yonkers, New York, U.S.
Genres	Hip hop, hardcore hip hop, gangsta rap
Occupations	Rapper
Years active	1994 – present
Labels	D-Block, Ruff Ryders, Def Jam, Roc-A-Fella
Associated acts	Fat Joe, Rick Ross, Swizz Beatz, Pharrell, DJ Khaled, DMX, Jaheim, Fabolous
Website	www.jadakiss.com

Jason Phillips (born May 27, 1975),^[1] better known as Jadakiss, is an American rapper. He is a member of the group The LOX. (a member of the hip hop collective Ruff Ryders) Jadakiss is one of the three owners of the imprint known as D-Block. In early 2007, Jadakiss signed to Roc-a-Fella Records / Def Jam Records.

Early life[link]

By the age of 16, Jadakiss was a freestyle rapper. He and some of his friends were given the opportunity to compete in the "Jack the Rapper Competition" in Florida, where Jadakiss had been noticed for his battle rap ability. He met Dee and Wah of the Ruff Ryders (then a management company), and began hanging out and battling outside of the Ruff Ryders' studio where artists such as DMX made their first hits.

Career[link]

Early career[link]

Jason Phillps founded the rap group The Warlocks in 1994 with friends, Chris "Lil Mac" Pelkey, and Styles P. They later signed to Bad Boy Entertainment, where it was suggested that they change their name simply to "The LOX", which came to stand for Living Off eXperience. They made their first appearance on The Main Source's 1994 LP Fuck What You Think on the track "Set it Off".

The group, especially Jadakiss, developed a close relationship with The Notorious B.I.G., during which time Jadakiss was taken under Biggie's wing. The LOX's first hit was the tribute to The Notorious B.I.G. called "We'll Always Love Big Poppa" (the B-side to Puff Daddy's "I'll Be Missing You") in 1997. In 1998, the LOX released Money, Power & Respect. Though the record was successful, eventually going Platinum, The LOX grew unhappy with Bad Boy Records and Puffy's glossy, radio friendly production. Following this album, they left the label to sign with Ruff Ryders Entertainment

[edit] 2001-2003: Kiss Tha Game Goodbye

Jadakiss's debut solo album, Kiss Tha Game Goodbye, was released in August 2001 on the Ruff Ryders/Interscope label. The album featured popular guests and producers such as DJ Premier, The Alchemist, DMX, Snoop Dogg and Swizz Beatz, but was written off as repetitive and uninspired. Jadakiss has acknowledged the criticism as, generally speaking, valid, saying the record was done less out of inspiration than out of contract obligations to Bad Boy. The album produced the single "Put Ya Hands Up."

Jadakiss is mentioned in Eminem's 2002 song 'Till I Collapse as one of the best rappers in the industry.

[edit] 2004-2008: Kiss of Death and signing to Def Jam

Jadakiss's second album, Kiss of Death, was released in June 2004. His song "Why?" (featuring Anthony Hamilton) became one of the year's biggest hits, spawning a remix featuring Styles P, Common, Nas, and Hamilton. "Why?" remains Jada's biggest hit, peaking at #11 on the Hot 100. Another single from the record, "U Make Me Wanna", featured Mariah Carey and was a much more commercially driven love song. Kiss of Death did not reflect the popularity of its lead single, but it was better received than his first effort.

Jadakiss in 2009.

In late 2007, Jadakiss signed to Jay-Z's Roc-A-Fella Records, a move Jay had been trying to arrange for a long time.^[2][3] The move came on the heels of increased D-Block/Roc-a-Fella collaborations; in 2006, Jadakiss and former rival Beanie Sigel collaborated on DJ Khaled's album Listen...the Album, and in 2007, on Freeway's album Free At Last. Styles P appeared on a radio freestyle with Freeway and Sigel, and also appeared briefly in the video for Jay-Z's American Gangster single "Roc Boys," in which he throws up the famous Roc-a-Fella sign, "the Diamond."

[edit] 2009-present: The Last Kiss, Remaining at Roc-A-Fella and Top 5, Dead or Alive Consignment

In 2009, Jadakiss released his third official album, The Last Kiss. The first single is "By My Side", featuring Ne-Yo. The second official single is "Can't Stop Me". The third official single is "Death Wish", featuring Lil Wayne. The fourth official single is "Who's Real", featuring Swizz Beatz and OJ Da Juiceman. In 2010, Jadakiss reunited with the Ruff Ryders label while remaining at Roc-a-Fella.^[4]

In 2011, he was featured on two DJ Khaled tracks, one of them titled "It Ain't Over Til It's Over", also featuring Mary J. Blige and Fabolous, and "Welcome to My Hood (Remix)", also featuring Ludacris, Busta Rhymes, Twista, Mavado, Birdman, Ace Hood, Fat Joe, Game, Bun B and Waka Flocka Flame. On April 26, 2012, Jadakiss mixtape Consignment was released.^[5]

Personal life[link]

Legal issues[link]

In July 2004, Jadakiss was arrested in North Carolina on marijuana and gun-possession charges.^[6][7] Several months later, he reached a plea agreement on misdemeanor charges and was ordered to pay a $900 fine.^[7][8]

On October 7, 2006, Jadakiss was once again arrested in his hometown of Yonkers, New York, on gun and drug-possession charges.^[7][9] A Yonkers Police Department spokesperson said Jadakiss was one of four men sitting in a 2006 Toyota Camry that was parked near the intersection of Nepperhan Avenue and Elm Street in Yonkers at around 5 a.m. Saturday. Officers said the vehicle's driver was behaving oddly and said they noticed a strong odor of marijuana while approaching the car. Inside the vehicle, police found a .38 caliber revolver that had been reported stolen. According to The Associated Press, the weapon was loaded.^[7][9] All occupants were charged with possession of a stolen firearm; Jadakiss, was also charged with possession of marijuana (a small amount was found on his person).^[7][9] The driver, Darnell Frazier, was charged with driving under the influence. The other two men in the vehicle are listed as Benjamin Lockhart and Kristian Smith. All were remanded to Westchester County Jail and were held until at least Tuesday of that year, when they were due in court.^[9]

House raid[link]

Police arrested two men on multiple felony charges after they raided Jadakiss's Yonkers, New York apartment and found large amounts of heroin and marijuana.^[10] According to police, multiple narcotics were discovered in the rapper's waterfront home.^[10] The incident took place on the morning of August 24, 2009.

Both men were reportedly in police custody and had been criminally charged.^[10]

Controversy[link]

This article's Criticism or Controversy section may compromise the article's neutral point of view of the subject. Please integrate the section's contents into the article as a whole, or rewrite the material. (August 2010)

Roc-a-Fella/Sigel[link]

Jadakiss was engaged in a long feud with several Roc-A-Fella Records artists, specifically Beanie Sigel and State Property, beginning in 2001. The feud began when Jadakiss stated in a radio interview that many Philadelphia artists at the time were biting his style. Being from Philadelphia, Beanie Sigel took offense and came with a diss freestyle over Jadakiss's single "Put Ya Hands Up". Jadakiss responded with a diss freestyle of his own. Soon after, members of both The Lox and State Property were involved in the feud. The Lox and State Property would continue to diss each other on radio freestyles and mixtape songs for the next few years. The problem was eventually resolved, and since then, the LOX and Beanie Sigel have collaborated on various tracks together, including Sheek Louch's Kiss Your Ass Goodbye Remix, Ghostface Killah's "Barrell Brothers" which features both Styles P and Beanie Sigel and DJ Khaled's track "Problems" which features Beanie Sigel and Jadakiss. Definite signs that the feud was over came in 2007 when Jay-Z signed Jadakiss to Roc-A-Fella.

P. Diddy[link]

When the LOX left Bad Boy Records, the group's and each of its members' publishing was still owned by label head P. Diddy. The LOX released several tracks like "We Are The Streets" and "Blood Pressure" which allegedly were aimed towards P. Diddy. The group fought with him over royalties, debt issues and other things until 2005 when they briefly put their differences aside to perform with Jay-Z at his "I Declare War" concert. Afterward, they went on New York radio station Hot 97 to ask for their publishing, which was given to them by Diddy. It is anticipated that The LOX will re-sign with Puff and release their next album on Bad Boy Records, but a deal has yet to be finalized.

50 Cent[link]

In 2004, Jadakiss and Fat Joe were featured in Ja Rule's "New York" single. In this song, Ja Rule took obvious shots at 50 Cent. In turn, 50 Cent made a song titled "Piggy Bank" in which he disses Fat Joe, Nas, and Jadakiss. This caused Jadakiss to release "Checkmate", "Problem Child", "Shots Fired" and "I'm Sorry Ms. Jackson". 50 Cent along with his G-Unit crew responded with songs such as "I Run New York", "Window Shopper", and "Death Wish" by Lloyd Banks. Jadakiss challenged 50 Cent to an onstage battle in Madison Square Garden for 1 million dollars, but 50 Cent declined. The feud was later resolved, with the respective parties performing together at 50 Cent's ThisIs50 Festival.^[11]

Bill O'Reilly[link]

Jadakiss attracted some controversy and condemnation from commentator Bill O'Reilly, who labeled him a "smear merchant" due to lyrics in the song "Why?", which state Jada's belief that George W. Bush coordinated the September 11, 2001 attacks. "Why do niggas push pounds of powder? Why did Bush knock down the towers?" In the music video for "Why?", a man holds up a picket sign reading "Buck Fush" (a spoonerism of "Fuck Bush"). O'Reilly took the position that the President should be allowed to sue Jadakiss for slander. The track was eventually banned on some radio stations or played with the lyrics in question censored.^[12][13][14]

It's Good[link]

In 2011, with the release of Lil Wayne's "The Carter IV", Jadakiss was dragged into a feud between Jay-Z and Lil Wayne on the song "It's Good". Jadakiss has since distanced himself from the conflict by announcing publicly that he had no ill will towards Jay-Z and that he was sent the track prior to the addition of Lil Wayne's and Drake's vocals.^[15]

Discography[link]

Studio albums

• 2001: Kiss tha Game Goodbye
• 2004: Kiss of Death
• 2009: The Last Kiss
• TBD: Top 5, Dead or Alive

See also[link]

• The LOX
• Ruff Ryders

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Jadakiss on Myspace
• [2]

Jim Jones
Born	James W. Jones (1931-05-13)May 13, 1931 Randolph County, Indiana, U.S.
Died	November 18, 1978(1978-11-18) (aged 47) Jonestown, Guyana
Occupation	Religious leader
Religion	Agnostic/Atheist[1]
Spouse	Marceline Baldwin Jones (1927 - 1978)
Children	Agnes Paulette Jones (1943 - 1978) Suzanne Jones Cartmell (1953 - 2006) Stephanie Jones (1954 - 1959) Lew Eric Jones (1956 - 1978) Jim Jon Prokes (1975 - 1978) Stephan Gandhi Jones (1958- ) James Warren Jones, Jr. (1961-)
Parents	James Thurman Jones (1887 - 1951) Lynetta Putnam Jones (1902 - 1977)

Reverend James Warren "Jim" Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple, which is best known for the November 18, 1978 mass suicide of 909 Temple members in Jonestown, Guyana along with the killings of five other people at a nearby airstrip. Over 200 children were murdered at Jonestown, almost all of whom were forcibly made to ingest cyanide by the elite Temple members.

Jones was born in Indiana and started the Temple in that state in the 1950s. Jones and the Temple later moved to California, and both gained notoriety with the move of the Temple's headquarters to San Francisco in the mid-1970s.

The incident in Guyana ranks among the largest mass suicides in history, though most likely it involved forced suicide and/or murder, and was the single greatest loss of American civilian life in a non-natural disaster until the events of September 11, 2001. Among the dead was Leo Ryan, who remains the only Congressman assassinated in the line of duty as a Congressman in the history of the United States.^[2]

Early life[link]

Jim Jones was born in a rural area of Randolph County near the Ohio border,^[3] to James Thurman Jones (May 31, 1887 – May 29, 1951), a World War I veteran, and Lynetta Putnam (April 16, 1902 – December 11, 1977).^[4] He was of Irish and Welsh descent.^[5] Jones would later claim partial Cherokee ancestry through his mother, though this was likely false according to his maternal second cousin Barbara Shaffer.^{[5][note 1]} Economic difficulties during the Great Depression necessitated that Jones' family move to nearby Lynn, Indiana, in 1934.^[6] Jim Jones and a childhood friend both claimed that Jones' father was associated with the Ku Klux Klan.^[6]

In interviews for the 2006 documentary Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, childhood acquaintances recalled Jones as being a "really weird kid" who was "obsessed with religion ... obsessed with death". They alleged that as a child, Jones frequently held funerals for small animals and had reportedly stabbed a cat to death.^[7]

Jones was a voracious reader as a child and studied Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx, Mahatma Gandhi and Adolf Hitler carefully,^[8] noting each of their strengths and weaknesses.^[8] After Jones' parents separated, he moved with his mother to Richmond, Indiana.^[9] He graduated from Richmond High School early and with honors in December 1948.^[10]

Jones married nurse Marceline Baldwin in 1949, and moved to Bloomington, Indiana.^[11] He attended Indiana University at Bloomington, where a speech by Eleanor Roosevelt about the plight of African Americans impressed him.^[11] Jones' sympathetic statements about communism offended Marceline's grandmother.^[11] In 1951, Jones moved to Indianapolis, where he attended night school at Butler University, earning a degree in secondary education in 1961.^[12]

Building the Temple[link]

Jim Jones' first church in Indianapolis, Indiana

Indiana beginnings[link]

In 1951, Jones became a member of the Communist Party USA, and began attending meetings and rallies in Indianapolis.^[13] He became flustered with harassment he received during the McCarthy Hearings,^[13] particularly regarding an event he attended with his mother focusing on Paul Robeson, after which she was harassed by the FBI in front of her co-workers for attending.^[14] He also became frustrated with ostracism of open communists in the United States, especially during the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.^[15] This frustration, among other things, provoked a seminal moment for Jones in which he asked himself "how can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church."^[13][14]

Jones' interest in religion began during his childhood, primarily because he found making friends difficult, though initially he vacillated on his church of choice.^[5] Jones was surprised when a Methodist superintendent helped him to get a start in the church even though he knew Jones to be a communist and Jones did not meet him through the Communist Party.^[15] In 1952, Jones became a student pastor in Sommerset Southside Methodist Church, but claims he left that church because its leaders barred him from integrating blacks into his congregation.^[13] Around this time, Jones witnessed a faith-healing service at the Seventh Day Baptist Church.^[13] He observed that it attracted people and their money and concluded that, with financial resources from such healings, he could help accomplish his social goals.^[13]

Jones then began his own church, which changed names until it became the Peoples Temple Christian Church Full Gospel.^[13] The People's Temple was initially made as an inter-racial mission.

Jones moved away from the Communist Party and Maoists when CPUSA members and Mao Zedong became critical of some of the policies of former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.^[15]

Integrationist[link]

In 1960, Indianapolis Democratic Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones director of the Human Rights Commission.^[16] Jones ignored Boswell's advice to keep a low profile, finding new outlets for his views on local radio and television programs.^[16] When the mayor and other commissioners asked Jones to curtail his public actions, he resisted and was wildly cheered at a meeting of the NAACP and Urban League when he yelled for his audience to be more militant, and climaxed with "Let my people go!"^[17]

During this time, Jones also helped to integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the police department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Methodist Hospital.^[13] After swastikas were painted on the homes of two African American families, Jones personally walked the neighborhood comforting African Americans and counseling white families not to move, in order to prevent white flight.^[18] He also set up stings to catch restaurants refusing to serve African American customers^[18] and wrote to American Nazi leaders then leaked their responses to the media.^[19] When Jones was accidentally placed in the black ward of a hospital after a collapse in 1961, he refused to be moved and began to make the beds, and empty the bed pans of black patients.^[20] Political pressures resulting from Jones' actions caused hospital officials to desegregate the wards.^[20]

Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views.^[13] White-owned businesses and locals were critical of him.^[18] A swastika was placed on the Temple, a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones' house after a threatening phone call.^[19] Other incidents occurred, though some suspect that Jones himself may have been involved in at least some of them.^[19]

Jones' "Rainbow Family"[link]

Brochure of the Peoples Temple, portraying leader Jim Jones as the father of the "Rainbow Family"

Jim and Marceline Jones adopted several children of at least partial non-Caucasian ancestry; he referred to the clan as his "rainbow family,"^[21] and stated: "Integration is a more personal thing with me now. It's a question of my son's future."^[22] Jones portrayed the Temple overall as a "rainbow family."

The couple adopted three children of Korean-American ancestry: Lew, Suzanne and Stephanie. Jones had been encouraging Temple members to adopt orphans from war ravaged Korea.^[23] Jones had long been critical of the United States' opposition to communist leader Kim Il-Sung's 1950 invasion of South Korea, calling it the "war of liberation" and stating that "the south is a living example of all that socialism in the north has overcome."^[24] In 1954, he and his wife also adopted Agnes Jones, who was partly of Native American descent.^[22][25] Agnes was 11 at the time of her adoption.^[26] Suzanne Jones was adopted at the age of six in 1959.^[26] In June 1959, the couple had their only biological child, Stephan Gandhi Jones.^[25]

Two years later, in 1961, the Joneses became the first white couple in Indiana to adopt a black child, James Warren Jones, Jr.^[27] Marceline was once spat upon while she carried Jim Jr.^[19]

The couple also adopted another son, who was white, named Tim.^[25] Tim Jones, whose birth mother was a member of the Peoples Temple, was originally named Timothy Glen Tupper.^[22]

Asylum[link]

Belo Horizonte

Rio de Janeiro

Jones' Brazilian locations

After a 1961 Temple speech about nuclear apocalypse,^[20] and a January 1962 Esquire Magazine article listing Belo Horizonte, Brazil, as a safe place in a nuclear war, Jones traveled with his family to the Brazilian city with the idea of setting up a new Temple location.^[28]

On his way to Brazil, Jones made his first trip into Guyana.^[29] After arriving in Belo Horizonte, the Joneses rented a modest three bedroom home.^[30] Jones studied the local economy and receptiveness of racial minorities to his message, though language remained a barrier.^[31] Jones was careful not to portray himself as a communist in a foreign territory, and spoke of an apostolic communal lifestyle rather than of Castro or Marx.^[32]

After becoming frustrated with the lack of resources in the locale, in mid-1963, the Joneses moved to Rio de Janeiro.^[33] There, they worked with the poor in Rio's slums.^[33] Jones also explored local Brazilian religion.^[34]

Jones was plagued by guilt for leaving behind the Indiana civil rights struggle and possibly losing what he had struggled to build there.^[33] When Jones' associate preachers in Indiana told him that the Temple was about to collapse without him, Jones returned.^[35]

California Eden[link]

Los Angeles

San Francisco

Ukiah

Bakersfield

Fresno

Sacramento

Santa Rosa

Some of the Peoples Temple's California locations

After Jones' return to Indiana from Brazil, in 1965, Jones claimed that the world would be engulfed in a nuclear war on July 15, 1967, that would then create a new socialist Eden on earth, and that the Temple must move to Northern California for safety.^[13][36] Accordingly, the Temple began moving to Redwood Valley, California, near Ukiah.^[13]

While Jones always spoke of the social gospel's virtues, before the late 1960s Jones chose to conceal that his gospel was actually communism.^[13] By the late 1960s, Jones began at least partially openly revealing in Temple sermons his "Apostolic Socialism" concept.^[13] Specifically, "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment — socialism."^[37] Jones often mixed those concepts, such as preaching that "If you're born in capitalist America, racist America, fascist America, then you're born in sin. But if you're born in socialism, you're not born in sin."^[38]

By the early 1970s, Jones began deriding traditional Christianity as "fly away religion," rejecting the Bible as being white men’s justification to subordinate women and subjugate people of color and stating that it spoke of a "Sky God" who was no God at all.^[13] Jones authored a booklet titled "The Letter Killeth," criticizing the King James Bible.^[39] Jones also began preaching that he was the reincarnation of Jesus of Nazareth, Mahatma Gandhi, Buddha, Vladimir Lenin, and Father Divine. In the documentary Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, former Temple member Hue Fortson, Jr. quoted Jones as saying, "What you need to believe in is what you can see ... If you see me as your friend, I'll be your friend. As you see me as your father, I'll be your father, for those of you that don't have a father ... If you see me as your savior, I'll be your savior. If you see me as your God, I'll be your God."^[7]

By the spring of 1976, Jones began openly admitting even to outsiders that he was an atheist.^[40] Despite the Temple's fear that the IRS was investigating its religious tax exemption, by 1977 Marceline Jones admitted to the New York Times that, as early as age 18 when he watched his then idol Mao Zedong overthrow the Chinese government, Jim Jones realized that the way to achieve social change through Marxism in the United States was to mobilize people through religion.^[36] She stated that "Jim used religion to try to get some people out of the opiate of religion," and had slammed the Bible on the table yelling "I've got to destroy this paper idol!"^[36] In one sermon, Jones said that, "You're gonna help yourself, or you'll get no help! There's only one hope of glory; that's within you! Nobody's gonna come out of the sky! There's no heaven up there! We'll have to make heaven down here!"^[7]

Move to San Francisco[link]

The move of Peoples Temple headquarters to San Francisco in 1975 invigorated Jones' political career. After the Temple served an important role in the mayoral election victory of George Moscone in 1975, Moscone appointed Jones as the Chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission.^[41]

Unlike most other figures deemed as cult leaders, Jones was able to gain public support and contact with prominent local and national United States politicians. For example, Jones and Moscone met privately with vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale on his campaign plane days before the 1976 election and Mondale publicly praised the Temple.^[42][43] First Lady Rosalynn Carter also personally met with Jones on multiple occasions, corresponded with him about Cuba, and spoke with him at the grand opening of the San Francisco Democratic Party Headquarters where Jones garnered louder applause than Mrs. Carter.^[42][44][45]

In September 1976, Willie Brown served as master of ceremonies at a large testimonial dinner for Jones attended by Governor Jerry Brown and Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally and other political figures.^[46] At that dinner, while introducing Jones, Willie Brown stated "Let me present to you what you should see every day when you look in the mirror in the early morning hours.... Let me present to you a combination of Martin King, Angela Davis, Albert Einstein... Chairman Mao."^[47] Harvey Milk, who spoke at political rallies at the Temple,^[48] and wrote to Jones after a visit to the Temple: "Rev Jim, It may take me many a day to come back down from the high that I reach today. I found something dear today. I found a sense of being that makes up for all the hours and energy placed in a fight. I found what you wanted me to find. I shall be back. For I can never leave."^[49][50]

In his San Francisco Temple apartment, Jones hosted San Francisco radical political figures such as Angela Davis for discussions.^[51] He spoke with friend and San Francisco Sun-Reporter publisher Dr. Carlton Goodlett about Jones' remorse regarding not being able to travel to socialist countries such as Peoples Republic of China and the Soviet Union, speculating that he could be Chief Dairyman of the Soviet Union.^[52] After his criticisms caused increased tensions with the Nation of Islam, Jones spoke at a huge rally healing the rift between the two groups in the Los Angeles Convention Center attended by many of Jones' closest political acquaintances.^[53] Jones also enjoyed a favorable relationship with Warith Deen Mohammed, son of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad.^{[citation needed]}

While Jones forged media alliances with key columnists and others at the San Francisco Chronicle and other media outlets,^[54] the move to San Francisco also brought increasing media scrutiny. After Chronicle reporter Marshall Kilduff encountered resistance to publishing an exposé, he brought his story to New West Magazine.^[55] In the summer of 1977, Jones and several hundred Temple members moved to the Temple's "Agricultural Project" in Guyana after they learned of the contents of Kilduff's article to be published in which former Temple members claimed they were physically, emotionally, and sexually abused.^[45][56] Jones named the settlement Jonestown after himself.

Jonestown's formation and operation[link]

Jonestown

Georgetown

Kaituma

Peoples Temple Agricultural Project ("Jonestown", Guyana)

Jones had first started building Jonestown in 1970 as a means to create both a "socialist paradise" and a "sanctuary" from the media scrutiny which had started in 1972.^[57] Here they also established a cooperative called the "People's Temple Agricultural Project". Regarding the former goal, Jones purported to establish Jonestown as a benevolent model communist community stating, "I believe we’re the purest communists there are."^[58] In that regard, like the restrictive emigration policies of the then Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea and other communist states, Jones did not permit members to leave Jonestown.^[59]

Religious scholar Mary McCormick Maaga argues that Jones' authority decreased after he moved to the isolated commune, because he was not needed for recruitment and he could not hide his drug addiction from rank and file members.^[60] In spite of the allegations prior to Jones' departure to Jonestown, the leader was still respected by some for setting up a racially mixed church which helped the disadvantaged; 68 percent of Jonestown's residents were black.^[61] Jonestown was where Jones began his belief called "Translation" where he and his followers would all die together and move to another planet and live blissfully.

New children[link]

Jim Jones claimed that he was the biological father of John Victor Stoen, although the birth certificate lists Grace and Timothy Stoen as the parents of the boy.^[62] The Temple repeatedly claimed that Jones fathered the child when, in 1971, Temple member Tim Stoen had requested that Jones have sex with Grace Stoen to keep her from defecting.^[63] After Grace Stoen later defected in 1976 and began divorce proceedings against Tim Stoen in 1977, in order to avoid potentially giving up the boy in a custody dispute with Grace, Jones ordered Tim to take John to Guyana in February 1977.^[64]

After purported father Tim Stoen defected from the Temple in June 1977, the Temple kept John Stoen in Jonestown.^[65] The custody dispute over John Stoen would become a linchpin of several battles between the Temple and the Concerned Relatives.^[66]

Jim Jones also fathered a son, Jim Jon (Kimo), with Carolyn Louise Moore Layton, a Temple member.^[67]

Pressure and waning political support[link]

Congressional Pictorial of Leo Ryan

While most of Jones' political allies broke ties after Jones' departure,^[68] some did not. As a show of support, Willie Brown spoke out against enemies at a rally at the Peoples Temple, also attended by Harvey Milk and Art Agnos.^[69] Most importantly for Jones and the Temple, Moscone's office shortly thereafter issued a press release saying that Jones had broken no laws.^[70]

In the Fall of 1977, Tim Stoen and other relatives in Jonestown formed a "Concerned Relatives" group.^[71] Stoen traveled to Washington D.C. in January 1978 to visit with Congressmen, including Leo Ryan and State Department officials, and wrote a "white paper" to Congress detailing the dispute and pressing for Congressional correspondence.^[72] Stoen's efforts aroused the curiosity of Ryan, who wrote a letter on Stoen's behalf to Guyanese Prime Minister Forbes Burnham.^[73]

Amidst growing pressure in the United States to investigate the Temple, on February 19, 1978, Harvey Milk wrote a letter of support for the Peoples Temple to President Jimmy Carter.^[74][75][76] Therein, Milk wrote that Jones was known "as a man of the highest character."^[76] Regarding the leader of those attempting to extricate relatives from Jonestown, Milk wrote he was "attempting to damage Rev. Jones reputation" with "apparent bold-faced lies."^[76]

On April 11, 1978, the Concerned Relatives distributed a packet of documents, including letters and affidavits, that they titled an "Accusation of Human Rights Violations by Rev. James Warren Jones" to the Peoples Temple, members of the press and members of Congress.^[77] In June 1978, escaped Temple member Deborah Layton provided the group with a further affidavit detailing alleged crimes by the Peoples Temple and substandard living conditions in Jonestown.^[78]

Facing increasing scrutiny, in the summer of 1978, Jones also hired noted JFK assassination conspiracy theorists Mark Lane and Donald Freed to help make the case of a "grand conspiracy" by intelligence agencies against the Peoples Temple.^[79] Jones told Lane he wanted to "pull an Eldridge Cleaver", referring to a fugitive Black Panther who was able to return to the United States after repairing his reputation.^[79]

Visit by Congressman Ryan, murders[link]

In November 1978, U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan led a fact-finding mission to Jonestown to investigate allegations of human rights abuses.^[80] Ryan's delegation included relatives of Temple members, Don Harris, an NBC network news reporter, an NBC cameraman and reporters for various newspapers.^[81] The group arrived in Georgetown on November 15.^[80] On November 17, Ryan's delegation traveled by airplane to Jonestown.^[82] The delegation left hurriedly the afternoon of November 18 after Temple member Don Sly attacked Ryan with a knife.^[83] The attack was thwarted, bringing the visit to an abrupt end.^[83] Congressman Ryan and his people succeeded in taking with them fifteen People's Temple members who had expressed a wish to leave.^[84] At that time, Jones made no attempt to prevent their departure.^[85]