Jim_Jones_1

Jim Jones 1 His life-long apparition of leading The Peoples Temple can be traced all the way back to his early childhood influences. Jones was born in May of 1931 in a small town in Indiana, a part of the country, which at this time was divided by racial segregation and imbued with Christian fundamentalism. Jones’ father, James Thurmond Jones was an active participant in the Klu Klux Klan, and was described by Jones as a “KKK bandit”. As a child Jones was viewed as the “Dennis the Menace” of his town for he was known to regularly greet his neighbors by shouting, “Good morning, you son of a bitch.” Upon Jones’ first exposure to religion he was extremely enthusiastic about getting involved in the Pentecostal churches he attended. Such affection and emotion to the Pentecostal church persisted throughout his life. Jones was once heard saying, “I had had my religious heritage in Pentecostalism… deep rooted emotions in the Christian tradition and a deep love which I share to this day for the practical teachings of jones, church, pentecostal, tradition, town, temple, saw, racial, peoples, life, later, jones’, healing, early, deep, create, christian, child, able, years, way, warmth, viewed, using, upon, traced, together, time, ticker-tape, thurmond, throughout, though, things, teachings, strong