A group of Peoples Temple survivors announced plans today for a granite monument inscribed with the names of more than 900 people who died in the Jonestown tragedy 32 years ago in Guyana.
Some ex-members have grown impatient with efforts by the Rev. Jynona Norwood over the decades to erect a 36-foot-long stone wall, like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, at the Oakland cemetery where more than more than 400 unidentified and unclaimed victims are buried.
The Associated Press reported today that those planning the new memorial include Jim Jones Jr., an adopted son of the temple leader. Jones told The Associated Press it’s time to move forward with an alternative monument — four stone slabs that would be sunk on the grassy mass grave site overlooking San Francisco Bay.
“It’s been 32 years,” said Jones, who lost his parents, his pregnant wife and several other relatives in the mass murders and suicides. “I have loved ones and their name is not listed anywhere.”
The AP report said that some ex-members have grown impatient with efforts by the Rev. Jynona Norwood over the decades to erect a 36-foot-long stone wall, like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, at the Oakland cemetery where many of the unidentified and unclaimed victims are buried.
Norwood, whose family lost 27 relatives in the tragedy, said she would press ahead with her own memorial, even though cemetery management says it is impractical for the site. Asked about the competing plan, she said angrily, “They want the people forgotten, so put their names on the ground.”
AP said the new memorial plans came as about 40 people attended services featuring civil rights activist and comedian Dick Gregory.
Jim Jones Jr., now a medical devices salesman who is married and has three sons, said his father was a victim of his own madness and he wants an inclusive monument remembering all who died.
During a fact-finding mission to Jonestown to investigate reports of abuses of members, San Francisco-area Rep. Leo Ryan, three newsmen and a church defector were ambushed and killed by temple gunmen on the Port Kaituma airstrip on Nov. 18, 1978. Jones then organized a ritual of mass murder and suicide several miles away in the temple’s agricultural commune.
Some Jonestown residents escaped before or during the violence, and other members, like Jim Jones Jr., survived because they were away that day.
