Episode 10 Thank you for letting me be myself

 Music from He’s Able: Hold on brother

 “Sweet” By Jordan Vilchez

 Howler monkeys in the night
Plantain, cassava, eddoes, waiting to be planted
Early morning dew
Wooden window open to the cool dampness and smell of the jungle,
Peering out of the swung-open window from the top bunk
The murmur of his voice…I drift off to sleep.

In the dead of night
Alert, alert,
Enemy!

Sweet jungle…, mmm. Ahhh…… –No.

Up early, boots on, bandana, cutlass,
smell sweat already.

Tiny banana and peanut-butter-and honey sandwich tied to my hip
Love the homemade bread more than anything else.
Wish I had more than just one sandwich.

Hard work, proud laborer,
like the movies we saw of Cuba. In my mind I’m singing,
“Cuba que linda es Cuba….” breathe,

Finally living the dream.
On the back of the truck, riding out to the field, rocking back and forth bobbing through the crater potholes, beautiful jungle all around.

Proud.
The revolutionary life. Creating community, working.
Sacrifice.…–Sweet.

Dreams of Joe Hill and rebel girl, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.
Lovers through a common cause, swirling around, dancing in my head.

More dreams still of the Chilean I loved and longed to be with. We had marched around the International Hotel, arm in arm. He was a refugee that visited in San Francisco.

Oh yes! united in the cause of freedom, justice and equality.

Laura and I were translators, we knew Spanish. –A door to the outside world.

Uh-oh, love Not Allowed. He’s not a member. …, besides, “what’s a good, dedicated girl like you doing falling in love” –wrong! ………riding along in the truck, on our way to the fields, swaying and bobbing into the potholes……switch, …. Earth Wind and Fire songs, now going through my head.

“That’s the way, of the world” …. “Reasons”, …….“Get Away” –Hmmm……

What innocence, what sweetness what and purity, ……What beauty, radiating in my heart,

Standing fully in desire of doing the best …to completely step up and be counted in a most magnificent cause.

Dreams, & hopes, shine through a suspended self, searching, accepting this place where I have been taken. –The space I now occupy.

Life is hopeless out there in the world. I am where I am supposed to be.

Standing ready, …..giving, …..trusting, …..believing
….and Dying
Many… many,
so many,
times.

You’re listening to Transmissions from Jonestown. This is Episode 10: Thank you for letting me by myself.

 November 18, 2018. Forty years ago tonight, the Peoples Temple gathered under the pavilion one last time. Father spoke on the microphone, urging them to comfort their children as poison was poured down their throats. The congressman is dead and father assured them that the GDF would be there any minute. People with guns and crossbows circled the perimeter of the pavilion cutting off all possible escape routes. As children were led away from the vat some seemed to stop like a watch while others convulsed and frothed at the mouth. A deadly cocktail of cyanide, valium, and chloral hydrate had been formulated to put the children to sleep before they began suffering. We laid it down, we got tired. As father rambled on, children were laid in the grass. As they died it became clear, this time it wasn’t a drill. A hysterical din rose from the head of the line. Lay down your life with your child but don’t be this way, father scolded. There was no way out, everyone is dying around you, everyone you ever knew, and there is was no way out.

 Q042 John Moss Brown : The way the children are laying there now, I’d rather see them lay like that than to see them have to die like the Jews did, which was pitiful anyhow. And I’d just like to thank Dad for giving us life and also death. And I appreciate the fact of the way our children are going. Because, like Dad said, when they come in, what they’re gonna do to our children — they’re gonna massacre our children. And also, the ones that they take captured, they’re gonna just let them grow up and be dummies like they want them to be. And not grow up to be a socialist like the one and only Jim Jones. So, I’d like to thank Dad for the opportunity for letting Jonestown be, not what it could be, but what Jonestown is. Thank you, Dad.

 You’ve probably heard the story of how the life of Peoples Temple came to its violent and devastating end. What exactly happened those last few hours in Jonestown have been scrutinized and traced over a thousand times. Clearly many people who died in Jonestown didn’t have a choice. The first images of Peoples Temple most of the world saw were the Ariel photographs taken from a helicopter as it circled the pavilion a day after the mass tragedy. At first you see what looks like swatches of bright fabric against a muddy backdrop, as photographer zooms in, a gruesome landscape of remains, too many to count, twisted in various states of decomposition lie face down rotting in the sun. A holocaust destroying the lives of thousands of people had happened overnight for no logical reason. The horrific carnage of these images and the enormity of the crime gave society its first and last impression of the Peoples Temple.

 These images define what most people know about Jonestown. It is important to note that the remains of those who fought against the mass slaughter of the community, those who died violent deaths, are impossible to discern from those who died revolutionaries for the cause. The Peoples Temple is viewed as a mass collective that lived and died as one, united forever in deaths final embrace.

 Rebecca Moore: One of the things that really hit home this year, we’re talking about 40 years. The narrative focuses on Jonestown the last day. Were defining people by their deaths and what happened on the last day of their lives. Id like to see the narrative shift to focus on Peoples Temple and the people who lived there. What was it that was appealing? How did they mobilize so many people for so long? The weaknesses of course. The racism and the hierarchical structure. The lack of democratic organization. I think its worth studying what was wrong with People Temple and not just say, well that’s a cult and that’s what all cults do. But what specifically could we learn from the mistakes and failing of Peoples Temple and what specifically could we learn from their successes? Moving a thousand people from one country to another. Working with other progressive groups on a progressive coalition to make social change to effect racial equality or social justice. So, by focusing on Jonestown we are missing a great deal and we are also disrespecting the lives of the people who were part of that movement.

 Who were they? If we start looking at Peoples Temple can we look at the lives of people? What did they do? What did they think they were doing? Can we find documents or letters or photos? Things that might bring them to life and could humanize them. That is one thing that we’ve been trying to do for the last forty years was just to humanize those who died in Jonestown. These are real people. These weren’t crazy cultists. These were people who had family members, lives, aspirations just like all of us. So, what can we learn from what they were trying to accomplish? Id like to see the narrative shift from Jonestown to Peoples Temple.

 I have interviewed several people who survived Jonestown and Peoples Temple, as well as researchers and scholars who have diligently fought to uncover the truth. Their insights and experiences allow us to explore the day-to-day life of Peoples Temple in order to truly understand the motivation and ideology of its people. Who know how they died, but how did they live?  

 So, when Jim Jones started talking about the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project and the promised land, what did that symbolize to you?

 Dawn Gardfrey: Freedom. We were going to a place we would no longer be oppressed and have our own world. We would live together the same way we felt we lived together in the states as one. Even though it wasn’t all communal as of yet. We were a tight knit congregation. He was leaning towards giving us that for the rest of our lives. That’s what we thought. That’s what we were told. That’s what he taught. It was the things he said. That was what everybody was looking for. So, it was like ok we are getting ready to go to the promised land. That’s when he started calling it the promised land.

 Vera Washington: Every one of those people were so unique. Every one of those people had a dream. It’s so easy to just think of everybody as a bunch of crazies but no. He painted that jungle as a paradise, that place was a hell hole.

 Thomas Beikman: The peoples what I have a good memory of. A lot of them were very good people. Of course, there were some yoohoo’s in there, but they were all good people. It wasn’t like there was a bunch of maniacs. It was a façade of a church but a lot of people in it didn’t know it.

 Denise: I think the early days the spiritual message was there. It was more like going to church. The emphasis was on doing good works. The message was kinda like integration, that was a big part of it, civil rights and integration and moving forward and living by the golden rule so to speak.

 Tommy Ijames: It’s too easy to try to lump sum into what I felt the most about the church because the church transformed over time. It wasn’t always the same. It was a family. We were a family. There was less talk about the end of the world and how we were going to have to survive. We were on a mission. We were doing things that made sense. We worked on the farms together, socialized together, everything was done together. Even though we were part of the civilized world, lol, social world we were in our own world.

 Jordan Vilchez: I think that there were two very different things going on that were intricately intertwined. The motivation on the part of Jim and the motivation on the part of the people. Being in the middle of it I don’t think you could readily see it and it’s actually taken me almost forty years to unravel enough to see it clearly.

 Mike Carter: We all have our influences and people who don’t want to listen to two sides of a story, then they’re brainwashed.

 Vern Gosney: If you were looking form the bottom up, you have a different view than if you were a trusted person who actually had a gun, or you were getting on these other things that rank and file weren’t. Like chicken or toiletries or whatever. So it effects the way you look at things. I know when I came back the people who had just been in the temple had one view, the people who had went and visited Jonestown had one view, the people who were actually there had another view and I had my own view. I was shot and basically left for dead in the jungle. So, my perspective is different because I almost lost my life. So, I was much less forgiving. I just remember at the time that I never wanted to forget how it was. The memories do soften because they’re not imminent. They’re not right there.

 Rebecca Moore: I fell like there’s a bit of revisionist history being created I this 40th anniversary year and that is that Jim Jones was a charlatan and there was nothing ever genuine or authentic about Peoples Temple. That’s simply not true. The members who were part of Peoples Temple believed in what they were doing regardless if we think they were fooled by Jim Jones or not, in a way that’s irrelevant because they themselves were doing the work and doing the labor to create a new type of society. An interracial society, an egalitarian society. We could say well they didn’t succeed right? That they failed. But just because they failed does not mean they didn’t make a good faith attempt to try to implement their ideals. I really reject the current revisionism that say there was nothing ever genuine about Peoples Temple it was all fake it was all a fraud. I just don’t think that’s true. How could you get people to do, to make the extraordinary sacrifices that they made if they did not believe in what they were doing?

 David Wise: It is an indictment of our society that even when people began to see Jim going crazy that they continued to hope on hope on hope that he could still do some good in the world because everywhere else they looked they saw craziness and insanity that seemed to be even worse.

 Laura Johnston Kohl: We all know so much about Jim Jones. Like we know who he screws who he didn’t, what color was his underwear, what he ate for breakfast and yet 917 other people died that day. Not only do we not know about them but people just diss them like they were just sheep being led to slaughter. Instead of saying they were the best and brightest. The most willing to make this huge leap to make the world better. People who were willing to make these sacrifices even before they lost their lives and to have them dissed or put down is just appalling.  

 Fielding McGehee: Jonestown was not born on November 18, 1978 and did not die on November18, 1978.

 People joined the temple for different reasons. Jim Jones and the movement appealed to devout Christians and atheists alike while also nurturing spiritualist values and practices. Every member of Peoples Temple had a common goal, to improve society through selfless acts, focusing the energy of the group towards creating a brighter tomorrow. In the beginning, the church and its message had something for everyone. 

 Laura Johnston Kohl: Inside Peoples Temple I was an atheist, so I wasn’t sure it was gong to be my, my path was going to take me to Peoples Temple. In the beginning I wasn’t sure, I thought it was a wonderful place I just wasn’t sure it was for me. I explain Jim as being, you know the quote from the bible that he used a lot, and really, he lived his life by, is he wanted to be all things to all people. So, what he would do, when I was in the group, he would be sure to talk about politics and Angela Davis and the panthers and Kent State and all of those things. When people who were devout southern Baptists were in the group he would talk about the bible and quote scripture and talk about Mathew 25. When the Edgar Casey folks who had started coming around in the late 60s, when they were in the group he would talk about spiritualism and anticipating what the future might bring if you followed Edgar Casey. So basically, what he would do is he would create a message in any setting that would touch on what everybody in the group would want to hear. So, there would never be a time that his sermon or his public speaking would be 100 percent about the bible because he knew I would be asleep, and a lot of other people would be. He would talk about politics, he would talk about leaders, he would talk about Dennis Banks, he would talk about religion, he would talk about education, he would talk about rights for minorities, he would talk about everything in every setting so that everybody felt that he was kind of on their wavelengths for their issues.  

 Vera Washington: We were all so happy and we just felt so motivated. We thought that this guy was just awesome. He wanted what we thought was the best for us. We just like, in church you build disciples, he was building revolutionaries.

 Vern Gosney: I think initially I thought it was much more spiritual than it was because it was basically a political organization with a religious front.

 Jordan Vilchez: I trusted that what was happening around me was true and real. Whether or not it was real, just the intense excitement and passion alone was enough to kind of buoy you up into believing in miraculous possibilities. That unusual and abnormal things were possible.

 David Wise: When I first came into the church there was this security check on me in a way. Like to try to figure me out. This gal asks me, how do you see Jim? Do you see him as god? Do you see him as Lenin? I refused to fall into the trap with the answer and I said, because what they were looking for was clear and there was no way to escape in this moment. I said, I do not see him as god, I do not see him as Lenin. I see him embracing totality, so you could say I see him as totality.

 Over the last 40 years, those who survived Peoples Temple have tried to come to terms with their grief and alongside the rest of the world, understand why Jonestown happened. Even those who were there and worked closely with Jim Jones and temple leadership found out after the mass tragedy that they had only been told bits and pieces of the whole story. So many questions still linger in the minds of even those who there in those final hours in Jonestown. 

 Mike Carter: One of the biggest challenges with the temple is the thousands of people that were in involved. There’s all these thousands of different stories. Especially learning after the fact about the temple is the fact that not everybody knew everything, and we all had our own truths. Everyone thinks there was this mass collective consciousness, and it was the furthest thing from the truth. It was very much manipulative and segregated and people were told what they wanted to hear to keep them moving forward and to keep them inline and it was very well orchestrated. The ends justified the means? Not really. Because the goal for many people was not necessarily about Jim jones but about the work. There were certainly people there idolizing Jim, no doubt about it, but for most people my, the people I hung out with and the people my age group it really was about the social action and the good and making change which was something the temple was doing. So the thing is, I still remember after the fact and talking to people, we all knew different things that happened that others didn’t know, but everybody was too paranoid to talk to each other about it.

 Vern Gosney: Any questions I had would probably be about CIA involvement. What level of CIA involvement there was both in the embassy and any connection that Jim Jones had in his past in Brazil?

 Jordan Vilchez: I think that every year there’s a deeper understanding within myself as to what happened. There is clarity. The bigger questions have really, for me, been answered. The biggest question is how can something like that happen? And I feel like I do understand how something like that can happen. People everywhere, humans are vulnerable in the sense of the need to belong, the need to have meaning. We are very malleable as well. There’s just I think an ongoing understand of what it means to be human, what it entails living together in groups, in society and what is truly healthy living look like with one another.

 It is impossible to imagine what it was like to lose so many friends and family members in the span of one day. For some, there was nothing to go back to in the United states. For others who grew up in the Temple, the world of their childhood was gone. Who did you lose in Jonestown?  

 Tommy Ijames: I lost…me. Everything that composed of my childhood, my life, was gone in an instant. It wasn’t just the people; it was the experiences it was as if they never existed. As if my childhood didn’t exist. I was emotionally isolated in a way that is hard to describe even today.

 Mike Carter: I think the hardest thing was, when you lose, when people go through a big loss there’s usually others there to help support and in this case the support system is what I lost. My whole family with the exception of my brother and my dad and then everybody who is involved is going through the same loss. So, there was absolutely no support for the majority of survivors.

 Laura Johnston Kohl: I think a lot of us who were left in Georgetown we hooked up with somebody else. Like I had a boyfriend when I was in Georgetown and then at one point the Guyanese government said all the woman and seniors could leave but I didn’t really have anything to go back to. My whole life for nine years had been Peoples Temple. I didn’t have anything left undone. I didn’t have a job. That was my family. Even though I didn’t have blood relatives there that was my adopted family and that was the family I expected to live my whole life with.

 Dawn Gardfrey’s Poem: “Didn’t mean”

 The voices come and go,
Breathing shallow
Can you hear them?
Mama are you there?
Sister is that you?
Brother can you hear me?

Cuz I can’t hear you
Scream so I can find you
Let the sound of your voice become louder so I can follow
I’m comin

Didn’t mean to leave you

Didn’t mean to go away and not come back
Thought I’d be back sooner than never

Can you hear me my friend?

YELL OUT FROM YOUR SOUL! So I can find you
Which way are you?
What road should I travel?

Didn’t mean to leave you
Didn’t mean to go away and not come back
Thought I’d be back sooner than never

Didn’t mean not to be laying side by side next to you; arms entangled together in a final embrace

Didn’t mean to leave you
Didn’t mean to go away and not come back
Thought I would be back
Sooner than never
Didn’t mean not to say “I Love You” on last time

DIDN’T MEAN…

Tommy Fayzo Washington grew up in San Francisco with his mother Sammie L Jones and his brother Marco. They lived on Geary Street within walking distance of the Peoples Temple. In 1969, when Tommy Washington was about four years old, his family joined the temple. Tommy remembers the temple as it was expanding from Redwood Valley into San Francisco.

 Tommy Fayzo Washington: Initially it was a beautiful thing. He used to take in homeless people, feed them, clothe them, give them room and board. He would even give allowance to the people in the church. The senior citizens, he used to take them in pay for their medical bills get them a place to stay. Feed them. It was really like a community church. And that’s what I think drew all the people in from different walks of life. He had entertainers there, you had lawyers, artists, dancers, painters, musicians. You had every nationality from the homeless people to doctors, lawyers, and public figures. People that were well known in the community use to come to Peoples Temple. It was just really a beautiful thing. I remember Jim Jones use to be on different talk shows and stuff like that and it was really good. In the beginning.

 As a young child what was it like growing up in the temple?

 Tommy Fayzo Washington: For me as a kid a lot of it was really fun in the early days of Peoples Temple. I remember in Redwood Valley we were at service down there and I remember it snowed down there a couple of times. I remember playing in the snow out in front of the church. The other thing I remember is just all of the concession stands and mom just having the best concession stand there. Like the best food. I remember us taking bus trips. One bus trip I remember we went to the White House. We would travel from Redwood Valley to San Francisco.

 Man! Look, this is what happened. We went to Disney Land one year. The whole church, like I said it was a beautiful thing we would take trips to places and it was wonderful. We took a trip to Disney Land. KC and the Sunshine Band was up there playing. They was up there playing and they asked someone to come up on stage. How come I went up on stage and started dancing? I went up on stage with KC and the Sunshine Band at Disney Land and performed, danced on stage and I was a kid, so I wasn’t thinking about hey take a video or a picture. There wasn’t no phones, everyone didn’t have a video camera. I just wish someone would have taken a picture of it.

 Why do you think music was such an important element of the Peoples Temple experience?

 Tommy Fayzo Washington: Because if you look at churches in general there is a lot of music, period. In general. Especially Baptists churches and Christian churches there’s a lot of music. So, it played a big part, even the choir singing is music. I guess Jim turned it in, I guess certain nights like Wednesdays he wanted to add another element to the church which was the talent show. That was a beautiful thing for me. The talent shows, that’s what I really liked about the church. Of course, I remember Black Velvet and all of the dancing and all of the bands, not the bands, but all the talent that the bands would actually play for in the church. It was bitter sweet memories for me.

 What’s your strangest memory of Peoples Temple?

 Tommy Fayzo Washington: Okay no, I’m going to tell you what the strangest memory was. We were playing out in the back of Peoples Temple. They had dirt back there, gravel and dirt back there where the buses were. We were playing and we saw this kind of croker sack looking thing, we pulled it, kept pulling. Really there wasn’t anybody out there but us. It was me and one other kid, maybe two other kids. We were nervous and kind of scared. We were playing and we found this bag of money. So, we kept pulling and we saw a bag of money was buried, I guess. But they didn’t bury it good enough and with the weather it surfaced, I guess. It was a bag of money and we didn’t know what to do. So, we covered it back up and we just left. It was a bag full of money. I don’t know how much money it was because we didn’t pull the whole bag out. We were kind of messing with it, and we saw money. I didn’t even tell mom about it until years later when I was an adult. We were nervous and scared but now that I think back, I wouldn’t have known what to do with the money and I know if I had given it to mom, she was really honest so that wouldn’t have worked. So, I don’t know what happened with it. I was just nervous and scared, and I never went back to that section. I don’t know what happened. That was one of the strangest things that happened to me, that I recall at the church.

 What do you remember about Jim Jones?

Tommy Fayzo Washington: I remember early on the services were really good and informative and as a kid it was like about the bible and stuff like that and god.  

Q987: He keeps doing great things for me…

 Tommy Fayzo Washington: But, one day I mean it just turned, it flipped an then I remember him, I remember Jim calling himself god. I remember during a lot of the services he would have these fake healings. For example, I’m in the audience I got my crutches, he would just, this was his way of reassuring everyone that he was god. That he had powers. He would just off the top of the head call someone. Let’s say for example he called my name, Tommy Washington from my understanding I see that you are crippled. You can’t walk. You had an injury. He would start breaking down things like that and then the person would stand up with their crutches and he would start talking to them with his healing words and he would come down and he had these red clothes that he would use. So, he would come down and he would place his hand upon the person and say these words and then push them in the forehead and they would start shaking and stuff and all of a sudden, they would get up with their crutches and then let their crutches go and then they would run around the church. The people would be hallelujah! Praise him! I remember one time he was supposed to have removed cancer from someone. Come to find out later it was chicken liver or something. He would put his hand in their chest area like he was relieving them from this cancer and there was this dark red stuff in this red clothe that he used to have, and he would show it to the temple, and it was like he just removed cancer from this person.

 Q987: Beal - The doctors had gave me up, and I had cancer at the brain. But Christ that’s working through Pastor Jim Jones healed me of cancer at the brain.

Congregation: Hallelujah.

Beal: The same Christ is working through Pastor Jim Jones. He healed me of cancer, helped me to go down and pass the cancer. That same Christ that’s working through pastor Jim Jones have saved me of many heart attacks, many, many strokes, saved my daughter from being raped. And I am very grateful for the Christ that’s working through Pastor Jim Jones working. Miracle worker.

Woman 2: You know, it’s something else when the doctors is getting ready to cut you open, (Pause) to cut you open to look into your heart to see what they can do-

Man and woman sing duet of “He’s So Real to Me”

Tommy Fayzo Washington: During that time, I started being skeptical. This is what turned me off. There were a couple of things. At one service in particular he took the bible and he threw it in the middle of the floor as if to say I’m god, I’m the only god and threw the bible in the middle of the floor. When he did that I was like, in my mind, why would he do that? So, I started looking at him a little different. Mind you I’m a kid, but I’m looking at him different and I’m like really observing him and the people around him. So, I would notice some of the people that was around him, how they would act and expressions on their face when he would do certain things. I could tell some people were just kind of like, he’s doing what he do. Meaning that almost like, I know its fake but this is part of my job so I have to go along with it. The way they would move, just the way they acted and the things that they did. They did every little thing that Jim told them to do almost like they were scared of him.

 One instance, when my godbrother passed away, now mind you he used to say he was god, so as a little kid I’m thinking okay, my god brother passed away. Jim could do something about this. Bruce and Billy (Oliver) were like my big brothers. Bruce, Beverly’s son did security for Jim. You had Bruce and Billy Oliver and their mother was Beverly Oliver. So, at this particular moment when you walk up the stairs you make a left and there was a doorway where security would be. That doorway was to the stage, to the pulpit so you could walk up to the pulpit and Jim would be right there. Bruce was doing security that night and I told him I wanted to talk to Jim. He talked to Jim and came back and told me to go up. When I came up the stairs, he was sitting on the pulpit on a chair looking down at me with these Elvis Presley looking glasses on. I just remember that look. He had these Elvis Presley glasses on, and his eyes were just wide, like extra wide. You know how you wake up or you’re surprised, and you look like whoa? His eyes were really open wide, and his pupils looked really weird. Come to find out later he was on drugs. I didn’t know that at the time, but he was probably high on cocaine or something. It looked like he was on something. So, I talked to him and I told him that my god brother Victor died, and can you bring him back? Mind you he is pulling cancer out of people he is healing people in wheelchairs on crutches, they’re getting up running around the church. So I’m thinking this guy can perform miracles. Can he bring my god brother back? I remember these words like it was yesterday. He said, “I can only prevent, I can’t bring them back.”.

I was distraught and disappointed. From that day forward nobody in the temple could tell me anything. I didn’t believe in Jim no more. I didn’t want to go to church no more. I was just there because mom was there. I remember we took this bus trip, and we would take these pit stops at a rest stop and we put concessions out. We would rest for about an hour. I thought, okay, I’m going to test Jim. If he is supposed to be god that means he knows everything. I walked down to a concession stand, I’m grown now I can say it, I stole some candy from them. Jim was right over, like maybe 15 feet away from me. I could see him talking to the people. I stole these candy bars and went about my business, got back on the bus when it was time to go. Mind you I’m nervous. I do remember we were on our way to LA because I remember we were at the LA service and I was nervous because he would call people out in the church and embarrass them. I thought he was going to call me out in LA. He didn’t. When we got back to San Francisco he didn’t. The next service he didn’t and the next and the next he never called me up. So, then I knew he was phony. From that point on I lost even more respect for him and his church. I knew he was just a fraud at that point. But I was a kid, and no one was going to listen to me. I just did what I wanted to do at that point, and they would go tell my mom. My mom was the only person who could tell me to stop doing what I was doing I didn’t listen to nobody else.  

What happened if you broke the rules?

Tommy Fayzo Washington: They had this big, you know like a row, it was a smaller version of that piece of wood. They would take these children up there lay them across their lap and hit them with this paddle. They called it a paddle. They would hit them with this paddle. And they did me like that one time. So, I forgot what I did because I told you I stopped listening to them, so they go tell me to go up there and they spanker me. But I was one of those kids that my emotions ran through my body so to speak. So, while they was up there spanking me it was just making me mad. I wasn’t crying. It was kind of pissing me off. Like hurry up and finish this. I’m gonna still do what I want to do.

How did your mom feel about that?  

 Tommy Fayzo Washington: She didn’t like it. I remember he called mom up on podium one time up on stage and was talking about how I wasn’t going to be anything and why does she still deal with me? Why does she still keep me? Basically, trying to tell her to get rid of me. I don’t know if it was to get rid of me to come stay at the church, because I know he was trying to get me and Marco to stay at the church in the commune. But mom wouldn’t allow it. So, mom stood her ground and said that’s my son, I’m the only person he has and I wont get rid of him. She stood her ground with it. Mom was one of the strongest women that I know. She was the mom and the dad and the uncle, she was everything. So, she stood up to him anytime. She wouldn’t back down even when they told her that they wanted me to come stay at the church. She said why would I send my son to stay at the church when he has a home here. No. not going to happen. So, it never happen. That’s I didn’t end up in the church and partly why I didn’t end up going to Guyana because he couldn’t control mom.

 When I asked Tommy Washington talks about his best memories of Peoples Temple he talks about Charles Marshall and Black Velvet. Black Velvet was a synchronized dance group formed by temple members in San Francisco. Disillusioned by Jim Jones, Tommy Washington found inspiration on stage between services.

 Tommy Fayzo Washington: I used to watch a lot of sci-fi movies. Lost in Space, the Day the Earth Stood Still, buck rogers, all of those sci-fi movies. You know the technology back then wasn’t like it is now. You could kind of see the robots moving with these silver costumes on, when they turned their neck you could see the leather pucker a little bit so you could tell they weren’t real robots. But the illusion of them being robots to the audience, we took it at face value. I would see how they would move and look around. Even the 7 Voyages of Sinbad, the way they animated it was amazing to me. So I started mimicking what they were doing to music. I would look at it and do it to the music. That was my first experience to the dance so to speak. But then when I saw a group really do it like that was Black Velvet. They had these white tuxedos on with these canes and these top hats. They would be up there stepping and killing it. Then they would go out solo and they all kinda had a different style but boy when Charles Marshal came out, that was the showstopper. He had showmanship, he had charisma, everything about him was just fly. So, when he would hit, the way he would pop was so hard his hat would shake. He moved so much like a robot you actually thought he was a robot. He looked so unhuman the way he would move, it was rythmatic at the same time. He was rhythmically moving to the music as a robot. When I started looking at Charles Marshall, I was like I want to move like that. This is what sealed it for me. Charles Marshall was on stage, mind you there’s the stage, you have the floor with people sitting on the floor which goes all the way back to the back of the temple. Then you have the balcony which is of course above the crowd sitting on the floor. Charles Marshall is way up on the stage doing his robotic movement and he starts pulling something. It looked like he was pulling a rope, but you couldn’t see the rope. You thought he was gesturing like a mime. Then all of a sudden you look up and you see a hat floating from the balcony. He was pulling the hat fromm the balcony and he pulled and pulled it and put it on his head. He pulled it right onto his head and started hittin POW. That was it for me. I wanted to be in Black Velvet. I was young so they wouldn’t let me in Black Velvet. But Charles Marshall took me under his wing and I kind of owe my initial style to him.

 I spoke with another Peoples Temple Survivor Dawn Gardfrey. She had been on the Temple Drill team and performed several times with Black Velvet and the Jonestown Express. She remembers Black Velvet after Charles Marshall left and they became a singing group.

 Dawn Gardfrey: Black Velvet was the singing group. Of course, they sang American hits, but they dressed like a singing group. Like the temptations, those days they were basically like that. That’s how they performed. We were the drill team and the African dancers. There was Black Velvet and of course the band. The band was the Jonestown Express. There were so many talented people. A lot of the band members were former entertainers. We were like big. We had started doing that in the state in California because we also did a performance before Earth Wind and Fire.

 Do you remember Dawn Gardfrey? She was on the drill team.  

 Tommy Fayzo Washington: Oh yeah! She’s cool too. I always thought she was super cute too. I was so little, and I was like, damn, she is so fine. But I was too young, so I just left it wat that.    

 So, tell me about these talent shows?

 Tommy Fayzo Washington: This is early on before all the bad stuff. My first experience on stage was in 1972. I recall it like it was yesterday. Down in the area where the concession stands were, we used to have to practice so we had different age groups. My age group had to make up this little dance skit to perform at the upcoming talent show. You had my age group, the preteens, then the older adults like Black Velvet. They were always in the talent shows killing it. Me and the other little group of kids that had our little dance skit ready to go on stage. The night that we were supposed to go on stage, I walked up first ready to go on. They called us up, being that I was already in front I just walked out on stage and I looked back and nobody came on stage. Everybody froze up. I went on stage by myself. The music started playing.

 I remember like it was yesterday it was Sly and the Family Stone: “Thank you for Letting me be Myself”. So, the band started playing it. As soon as that came on, I zone out. I didn’t see anybody in the audience it was just me and the stage and the music and I just started dancing. Mind you my focus is just on that radius of the stage and listening to the music. My attention didn’t go past the front of that stage so whatever was in front of that stage back I didn’t see. When the music stopped, and I stopped dancing I finally looked up. When I looked up, I had a standing ovation. When I had that standing ovation you just don’t know what type of feeling that is. Imagine a drug addict on whatever their drug is high as can be. That’s how I felt, almost like I was floating on cloud nine because they actually stood up and clapped for me. I’m like wow. I didn’t know forty some years later I would still be dancing and judging and performing at a high level. Not just performing, but still teaching dance throughout the world. From that day. It was just incredible. But that whole experience kind of defined me as a dancer and put a stamp on Peoples Temple for me as a part of my life. If I didn’t have the dance aspect of Peoples Temple, I probably wouldn’t be talking about it.  

 Tommy Washington is a successful dancer, choreographer and teacher who has worked with Usher and Justin Bieber. What he took away from his experiences growing up in the temple, inspired him to dedicate his life to his passion. Tommy, along with his dance group Media Sirkus, continue to redefine the world of modern dance and share their talents globally. 

 What do you remember about when you started hearing about Jonestown?

 Tommy Fayzo Washington: Jim would be gone. He would be over in Guyana. So, someone would have to take over for him on the service. So, when he wasn’t there, he would play recordings and show the videos. Sometimes we would listen to his sermons, we would listen on recordings. They had this portable projector in the middle of the floor so everyone could see, and they would show these video tapes of people dancing over in Guyana and all the food. These big old bananas and people were just having fun. He would call it the promised land. He would say this is the promised land. Basically, he was saying that there was going to be concentration camps. I do recall him saying that. He started talking about concentration camps and them coming to get us. We don’t want to be here when they come. This is the promised land; you’ll be taken care of over there. It is beautiful and everybody over there, even the testimonies were just, its wonderful to be here. We love it here. They would show videos of people cooking. You would see all the good food and stuff like that and be like wow. I want to go live over there. I was looking at it like wow, that would be nice. I would like to go over there.

 He was constantly, he was guaranteeing you would say okay I want to go. So, when it was time for everybody to go, people were already groomed and ready to go. But some weren’t. So, the ones that weren’t and had kids prior to all this he convinced the kids, or the parents to have the children live in the commune houses or in the church. Those were the first ones to go. A lot of these adults turned over their house deeds, everything to Jim. They did whatever Jim said. So, if Jim said that they were going to take these kids over to Guyana they would let them go. Probably under the assumption that their kids were going to come back. But Jim had no intention of the children coming back. So, then what? You get the parents to go over there to try to get their kid and you don’t let them. So that’s how a lot of the parents got over there and were stuck because they would go to try to get their kids back and they couldn’t leave.

 Beverly Oliver, so here’s the thing. Bruce and Billy wasn’t supposed to be going over there. Beverly told them no, they couldn’t go over there. No, you aren’t going to catch the bus when the bus was leaving. So, I guess Beverly wasn’t at home, she was at work or somewhere and when she came home they was gone. They were teenagers, they weren’t grown. They thought they were men even thought hey were still living in the house with mom. The end up going over there without her permission. So, she ended up gong over there trying to get them and from my understanding Billy wanted to come back and Bruce didn’t. But they wouldn’t let them back. They wouldn’t let them come back. Beverly went over there with Leo Ryan, she got shot in the foot. The front part of her foot was shot off, he toes. She ended up coming back but she had a major limp because that part of her foot was cut off. But she was never able to get Bruce and Billy, so they ended up dying over there.

 What was the atmosphere like in the SF temple when more and more people started moving to Guyana?

 Tommy Fayzo Washington: It happened kind of quickly. You start going to service and there were less and les people. It wasn’t the same. When you walked in the church the feel was different. The vibe was different. You know how you walk in some place and you feel the energy is not right? Like awe nah. It started feeling like that. Its almost like the calm before the storm. You go outside and seems like where is everybody? Then all of a sudden here come this big old spaceship from the sky or something and you’re like whoa. It almost had that eerie feeling like something aint right. At first it was like, several concessions stands, like my moms, Mai Spriggs, the lady from LA. Then you’d only see like maybe 6 or 7. Then you start seeing 5, 3, then my mom and one other. When mom left. I don’t know after that.

 Tommy Washington’s Aunt Kay Francis was on the planning commission. She warned Tommy’s mother about what she knew was happening amongst the inner circle and encouraged them to leave the temple.

   Tommy Fayzo Washington: What really made her leave was Grace Stoen. You know those rumors that Jim was sleeping with her? When Kay saw her on her knees begging Jim not to send her son over there, because Jim claimed it was his son. When Kay saw Grace beg and plead Jim disregarded her and sent her son over there anyway. So, when Kay saw that along with a few other things she got out. And Janet Shullar was Kay’s friend, so they both left at the same time. Kay told mom what was going on and so shortly after mom got out of there that was it. We never really looked back.

 What was going through your mind when you found out about the mass tragedy that had happened in Jonestown?

 Tommy Fayzo Washington: It didn’t hit me. That all of that happened. When it hit me is when I heard that momma (Georgia Lacey) died over there. When I heard that Charles Marshall died over there. When I heard my brother tony died over there and I didn’t even know he was my brother.  

 So, Charles Marshall of Black Velvet died in Jonestown?

 Tommy Fayzo Washington: Yeah. You gotta understand when I heard that he died over there, he and his brother named Mark, they died over there. I think he was in Black Velvet. I have a picture of them, and his brother was in Black Velvet too. Charles, Mark, and his sister died in Jonestown.

 Tommy Georgia lacy, otherwise known as big momma, her two adopted children, Black Velvet and countless friends in the Jonestown massacre. I asked him why he thought it happened? 

 Tommy Fayzo Washington: I don’t think about it in the aspect of him doing what he did, just what happened to all the people there. I was more distraught about that than I was surprised that Jim did that. Once I heard it I’m like okay, it make sense. I started reverting back to him throwing the bible in the middle of the floor saying he was god. All that started rewinding in my head and I’m like okay. Then I started putting two and two together all that was the ploy at the end to get everybody over there. Once he caved in so to speak, where everyone out here started knowing what he was doing, what he had going on. The legal stuff that he was doing and so on, they were closing in on him and he had to do what he had to do I guess what he thought he had to do, and some people went willingly, and some didn’t. Basically, all of those recordings, all of the videos were prepping everyone to get over to Guyana so he could control everyone.

 Tommy Washington’s story is an inspiring reminder, to always question the motives and sincerity of leadership, and to believe in yourself and trust your feelings.

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