next, a panel discussion on the people's temple. and theder jim jones community called jonestown he established in guyana. in 1978 more than 900 americans died in jonestown because of cyanide poisoning and what is called the jonestown massacre. the panel includes two former members of the people's temple. and two authors on books on the subject. the california historical society hosted this discussion. it's about an hour and a half. >> i want to welcome you all to the california historical society. on behalf of my board of trustees, my incredible team and staff, our volunteers, all of our members and all of our guests, welcome for a very special in poignant and powerful afternoon. we are deeply honored for our dear partners and friends. i think part of the is overused and i like using "polluters -- colluders." the san francisco public library, you cannot ask for better friends. this is a special part of the one city, one book extravaganza. thinking susan goldstein, marcia ander, christina reddy allowing guests to present this incredible panel today. special thanksa and remembrance to jim jones junior, who was hopeful to be with us today. he sends you and the panelists his best but he was able to participate due to health reasons. we will send out some good love to jim. the california historical society is honored to hold the people's temple collection. it was the decision of the california courts. california historical society was chosen as the repository in 1983. we have worked tirelessly with many survivors and many historians and students who want to learn about what happened in -- and how over the past intervening years. we are proud to be the largest repository of archival materials relating to the people's temple and jonestown. whether it be digitization of super eight films. for over 50 different collections contained within the people's temple. a broader collection that we are honored to stuart. -- steward. especially for our members and supporters out there and for our remarkable archival staff. this is the work that you helped us do. preserving fbi files, or photographs and other items. your support enabled our work. we are honored to invite you after the program ends back to our library over my right shoulder. it's a north bigger research library. it is the portal to our remarkable collections. staffmie henderson on our has lovingly laid out a number of pieces from the collection. including a number of letters that david used to write his book. not seen or touched that part of history come back afterwards and hold in your history hands. it's even more powerful. i am honored to be here today and moderate the panel. i will introduce my colleagues. and get the conversation going. have them talk amongst themselves and and take questions from all of you. we are deeply honored that c-span2 is here. we like it when they are here because you might -- like to look a little better under lights. we can't see you all that well but you all the beautiful because you are mostly back with. -- backlit. anti-moderate and help the questions flow, you will have filed little pencils that are cute and a blank card. if you have questions, please feel free to jot one down. razor and discreetly like you are bidding. one of our great team will come and collect them. for those of you that it into a panel, some of the questions circulate on top of each other. we can answer a lot of questions in good time. so i will introduce to your right into my left starting with john cobb. john is one of the few surviving members of the people's temple. he was born into the temple. his family was part of that first pioneering members of the doubt from indianapolis to redwood valley in california. and they were there for the beginnings of reverend jones 'attempt at establishing the church. he was a member until the group's tragic and in 1978. and he was in georgetown with the basketball team. he tragically lost 10 members of his family in jonestown. and he is currently writing a book about his story. we are all wishing him well. the completion date says 2016. to john's left, marshall kilduff. he said he of the best you ever because he walked from the chronicle building on fifth and mission. for those that know his long and illustrious decades, old career writing for the chronicle but also the very powerful piece that was not accepted by the chronicle in 1978. he has given voice to politics or lack thereof development, city affairs. , as a native of san francisco, he matriculated from the lovely campus on an old farm in palo alto. greatns us today to add a depth of narrative. he co-authored "suicide cult, history of peoples temple and jim jones." talbotu marshall is mr. who wrote "season of the witch." there seems to be no fitting choice as both the generations face who actively remember living here and being here in that horrible november of 1978. , "n david talbot's book season of the witch" is the book. is being read widely this week. is an americans journalist we are honored to call our own in california. a trailblazer and entrepreneur. he was the founder and editor-in-chief of one of the first web magazines salon.com. , he figured out the web long before anybody else. are you wearing your glasses? >> it's not a jim jones thing. it's the life. i have sensitive eyes. forgive me. when we talk later i will take my glasses off. >> he really has lovely eyes. and turning an idea into a way to consume knowledge with salon.com. after leaving salon he increased , his reputation as a historian. historians like to think of journalists as faster writers in the art. we are welcoming him into the tribal unit. called finished a book "brothers" which is on the kennedy brothers. he also worked as an editor for mother jones and writes prolifically for time the new , yorker, rolling stone, and many other publications. last on the podium and certainly not least in terms of big heart and personality and soul is eugene smith. he had just turned 21 years old prior to november 1978. as he broke and i will read this, for all intents and purposes, jonestown was the forge that sealed me and dictated my immediate future at that time. my only responsibility was to survive. there was no place to hide or to disappear." eugene lost his mother, his wife and his infant son that day. and he has spent the rest of his life dedicated to remembering and persevering. was toponsibility survive in previous knowledge in the depths of his heart and memory. he turned to writing. obviously an interesting part of what we are going to talk about today is how do you begin to write about this whether for personal memory or from journalistic or historians perspective. eugene's recent articles include one for the jonestown report. and he is also working on a book. i think 2016 will be a big year. >> it will be. >> you heard it here at the california historical society. please join me in welcoming my for incredible panelists. [applause] i think i'm going to ask david first to provide a brief historical context. as he has done so eloquently. we don't have two chapters of time. time with this kind of the as you so beautifully show us, starting after the summer of love and the rise of the counterculture. that helps us understand the rise of peoples temple and the reverend jones. all of us kind of blur together. my new book is about the dark history of the cia. it's called "the devil's chessboard." is there any other? the context for people's temple -- i think you have to look at frankly some of what is going on in the city already. the social disruption and the redevelopment the tore at the heart of black san francisco. that was the seed in the garden for jim jones to establishes his political roots in this town. and began to have white influence over the liberal leadership of san francisco. i don't think he could have done that if the fillmore had not been hollowed out by the san francisco redevelopment agency. which tore out the heart and soul of what was once known as the harlem of the west. a vibrant middle class black community. nightclubs, stores, houses and so on. my own son, joe talbot, is working with my honorary son to make a movie that is kind of continuing the legacy. the last black man in san francisco. to this day, you have a declining african-american population. and robbed of his political power. that definitely was the feeling at the time of jim jones came here from redwood valley, he was moving into a political vacuum. there were some african-american churches there. he became such a powerful force because he was a master of manipulating people. he was a master and these gentlemen can tell you more about that. about finding out what politicians weaknesses were. what his turn ons were and exploiting them. he delivered bodies and votes. vote early, vote often. we can talk about the election of 1975 as a key turning point. the mayor's race with george moscone a narrowly won due to voter fraud. first and foremost san francisco doing soul-searching has to analyze what it did to the african-american community to allow that redevelopment or negro removal as james baldwin called it. it was into that vacuum that jim jones moved. thank you so much. i am often reminded of that wonderful james baldwin quote that american history is more beautiful and more terrible than anything anyone has ever written about it. in this context of the horrors of urban renewal. especially as they played up in san francisco targeting the japanese-americans. they had just and back being incarcerated in camps. and then simultaneously the african-american communities. they had moved into some areas during the war that it been held by the japanese community. an incredible cycle of displacement. and in comes a man with great charisma, charm and power. i would like to ask john and in eugene to share some firsthand about their experiences and their families experiences with the church and helping us better understand from their perspective. john: hi everyone. my experience is unique in that there are probably two or three other people other than myself that were born into peoples temple who are still living. that is what i knew from day one. all of the things that i've read them because i have not read everything or most of the things we hear or talk about have been factual things. what happened this day and that day and so forth. what has been missed was the day-to-day occurrence of peoples temple lives. day-to-day what happened. not even jim jones. just several people that made it simple function. woulds it and, it perfectly without jones. have functions even better. he was just incapable of doing anything towards the end. there is a story i have repeatedly seen. what happened day-to-day in jonestown? why people were there? what drove people there. there is a sense that they were like mindless people following a cold. it was -- cult. these are people that i know and are still alive today are very successful. they did not have a problem integrating back into society. we were not that much different at all. one of the things that is offered -- several things that it offered. a lot of people say was involved politically. that was the driving force. but i look at the same things happening today. o'er the same things that people are voting for in looking for help with education, health care housing, being able to put food , on the table. once you became a member of the people's temple, you did not have to worry about that anymore. you did not. -- political beliefs everyone wanted to make the world a better place for this basic these were provided for you at some cost. it's funny. i have talked to a person that i knew whose family was part of people's temple. probably about 20 years. she has a few kids and grandkids now. she said johnny boy, i was the resulting the people's temple now. these kids today need that structure and purpose. granted there were a lot of , terrible things that happened. but the reason why people were there day-to-day and the functionality. how they live day-to-day i think has been missed. part of the thing that is jeremy to write is of the people that are no longer with us their , story has never been told. they died and were labeled as people who were casualties. wrong place, wrong time. of course some of the people didn't want to be there. i will expose a lot of that in my book. if they had a choice to leave they would have. ,overall i think there was so much more that was missed to that whole story. the negatives and the craziness of jim jones has been repeated endlessly. like where we are in our culture in time, people are ready to hear what else happened there. other than the facts. that is what has driven me to write. that is where i met with it. as far as my story, i was born there. i had a different understanding of it. i saw it for what it really was behind the scenes. a lot of people came in and saw jim jones is a profit, a hitler, a god. i never saw him is that. a lot of the things he perpetrated he could do, i do for pretty much day one he was not doing those. that is not why i or mckinley was there. my mother wanted a better life for her kids. we moved from indianapolis against my father's -- he eventually followed us. there were other reasons for it. basically, that is my story. i'm doing a pretty good job of telling it and i think it will be interesting. it would be a lot different from what is out there so far. >> thank you john. i would love to come back to some of those stories about the day-to-day community that was formed and the needs that were met. and especially in the 1970's we all hoped and believed that we are all created equal. it was a crazy time. eugene? eugene: i came into the temple basically when i was 15. the summer of ninth-grade coming in. i had always been politically inclined because my mother was. in addition to that she was always searching for that religion. in detroit we were part of aretha franklin's father's church. we were part of dr. laughlin's church. we have been catholic, we had been baptists, we had been nondenominational. every six months it was a new religion. [laughter] i basically revolted around 12 or 13 and said i'm done with this. she had heard about jim jones. i went to hear him speak at irwin junior high in fresno. and i thought he was interesting. the sunglasses threw me off. i didn't really come back and i was 18. then i moved into a commune in san francisco. at the temple. i stayed behind the stage initially. for me the temple was a candy store in the sense that there were no limits on what i could do. there was no limit to happiness. no end to my learning. in seventh grade i was already reading at a 12th grade level. so coming into the people's temple and 18 and having a printing press and they would shop and a construction crew, having all these resources to get you into the community and meeting people. it all seemed normal. what made it seem normal was that you would see jerry brown -- willie brown at a meeting or jane fonda. we are not all being full. something about this has to be real. or so you assumed. what happens after a period of time is that jim jones became background noise. what you felt responsible for the other people that were there. they were your family. a lot of people stayed because they didn't want to leave their family there alone. they didn't want them to be abused or possibly hurt. or interrogated because you left. some people stayed out of guilt, some people stayed out of responsibility. some people stayed out of love for other human beings that they had no blood relationship with but felt entitled to protect them. protect them and be at their call so to speak. when they were called, -- we never called old people old people. they were the repository of knowledge. when an elder person spoke you are expected to listen. if they needed assistance, you are expected to assist. during that time they passed on their knowledge to us. we passed knowledge on the younger ones. jonestown was a little bit different. getting there was an adventure. being there was an adventure. and a lot of times you were working on adrenaline because he , andr had a white knight even when you did know it was real there was a certain urgency to it because you were being awakened at a dead sleep and running to the pavilion to see what had happened. were they under attack? were they going to take the children? were they going to kill the seniors? were they going to bomb us off the map as if it never happened. even if you knew that there was a certain fright. my first night in jonestown we were going through all these potholes. they were huge because it was red clay. you cannot see the jungle. it was only 20 yards on either side of you. you could hear the pavilion miles away. people yelling and screaming. these delights in the middle of the jungle. it was very close to venezuela. that was why we were there. that was the disputed area between venezuela and guyana. by having a religious community there on agriculture mission justified guyana seizing the property. the jumping off the trailer and going to the pavilion. seeing people you would not seen for years or people you thought had left but they had not. seeing my wife who was just weeks away from delivering a -- i had probably not seen her in four months in my mother in over two years. sometimes longer than that. getting there and back meeting was easy. staying there and that committee was difficult. that is it. >> thank you. marshall, you started work in 1976. in about january of 1977 working as the recorder for the chronicle, investigating the people's temple church. wanting to write about it for the chronicle but not accepted. david details is very closely in terms of how close the chronicle editorial leadership was to jim jones. it then publishing -- was 1978? 1977. publishing his piece. marshall: if you are trying to get me fired, you are doing a very good job. [laughter] : let me try to strike a quick note of contrast. these idealism driven accounts -- life in the church. the way it would look to you or i or a reporter was nothing like that. this church was hostile, very enclosed, didn't want to deal with the world except on its own strict and structured terms. it went everywhere on its own. beingavid mentions flattened by redevelopment, that is part of the problem but the church came in as a total unit. they did some recruiting. but they were by and large themselves, on buses, from redwood valley. it was not a totally homegrown or open organization. it was especially true if you are a reporter asking questions. jones, what are you up to next? can i look your temple? can i meet your people? it would be very difficult to be a casual joiner or inquire or historian like the california historical society would want. it's a very sort of circumscribed and bounded world. the chronicle, they flattered my boss. don't you want to come to our church? a new guy on the job would want to know that and be accepted. when i went to the church, they sat me in the front row right next to my boss. it was very clear that the temple was in charge of the deal and don't worry about it. that was not so much my problem as the aspects of inside the church with the troubling part of the whole story. i'm sure david has written about it in these books. your life was really not your own. in many ways. they broke up families. your money got turned over. if you are a woman, you are at a special disadvantage, to put it delicately. there was a lot going on in faith healing to win over folks. it was not always as idealistic seeking as many of the ideals and -- that you would want to have. as this came out the church ran away. they went to guiana because their time was up in san francisco. you mentioned the politicians. that is a whole other then they said you can't blame me. it is a whole other side of the story. this forgetfulness and choosing what you want to remember. that is one of the worst parts about this experienced. there is no memorial in san francisco to this thing. when the bodies were brought back, those that were not claimed are now in a corner of the oakland cemetery. pulled away from the story. a lot of political figures are still hard at it. there are a lot of names that have gone through this story. the story continues to have fingers into the present. san francisco is in a lot of tumbles right now. the dollar signs are bigger. could something like this happen again? could someday show up with an answer? claims of future good things. taken at face value but never examined. that is where i look for this story. the peoples temple itself, it is now u.s. post office. the only congressman ever killed in the line of duty was leo ryan and jonestown. this stuff is still buzzing around in many different forms. that is my story. >> thank you all for that description. we will continue our conversation up here a little bit more and then take questions. i am struck by this remarkable confluence of issues like slavery and poverty coming out of the powerful, tumultuous time of 1948 to 1978. two years in california time is about 20 years somewhere else. the social changes that all of you lived through. payroll manifest here on the tip of his peninsula. why someone like harvey milk or george moscone. all of this took place at the same time culminating in an opening for someone like jones to move in. what i am loving up the conversation so far. is about the yearning for community from dislocated people. you have everything you would want as a child. a library health care, food. meeting those basic needs. wouldn't it be nice if kids growing up today in the mission or really anywhere in the bay area didn't have to worry about those things? very personal and also very political. this is of a heart of what we are trying to present to people today. john, i like to come back to you in terms of the missing stories. they made their own community weather up in the redwoods or down and down in guyana. john: a week in redwood valley. i saw jim jones, i didn't see him as a father. i just saw him as a man. two of my sons married to his daughters. i wasn't apprehensive about him. i was acclimated to it to where it was my lifestyle. a good friend of mine lives in atlanta. a lot of people for you guys were treated special. you guys were held in such a high regard. monday morning started off very sleepy. do more work and probably hang out with jimmy. tuesdays, same thing. go to the church. study. see the teachers or whoever was there. we were very well educated. on wednesday night we had meetings. after school on thursday. friday we would play games. our parents made sure we had that experience. get on the bus in redwood valley and come to san francisco. have a meeting friday night in san francisco. get back on the bus go to los angeles. play some basketball. get something to eat. get back on that bus and get back to redwood valley. about 3:00 in the morning on monday morning. that was our life. that is all i knew. three disciplined but was also fun. you would not being beaten to do it. you doing it with hundreds of people your own age. it was fun to go to san francisco and los angeles. they kept us out of trouble. we saw a different lifestyle. we will there for a purpose for our families. trying to make a better world. we didn't see color. i'm good friends with several people now. until i got older, i didn't see what the other people were experiencing. all these other negatives are documented in many of these books. i'm not trying to retell the story. i'm trying to tell a whole different story about what life was like in the sample. >> it was one of many communal experiments. cesar chavez had his own commune. it was increasingly insular. increasingly paranoid. a lot of the people who went through social justice movements in the 60's wound up in this fortress of people sample. california has an amazing history of communal and social experiments. john: you were not privy to a lot of things unless you a member, but once you became a member they would open up to you. i had friends who would come and visit on sunday. it was like you had to be a member to get in. if you just wanted to walk in off the street and come to a service, you could do it. david: when you hear about other religious groups and movements, do you ever wince? does it seem not lesson that you need to learn to talk about? my concern is that so much of this is repeatable. by talking about it and writing about it, does that give people more awareness of their world. john: when people have their minds made up, they are going to believe it. david: so much for journalism. john: you will have to grab and find things out for themselves. eugene: it is complicated because the temple had a lot of facets. i had just graduated from high school when i moved to san francisco. my day started at 5 a.m. i was on a construction crew, in fact i was in charge of the construction crew. we would be building crates to send equipment over to guyana. if you can imagine the materials for 1000 people, it was phenomenal. when i was on construction los angeles it was completely different. we were either refurbishing the homes are remodeling homes. on the jobsite by 6:00 a.m. we do not work on saturdays. coming back to get to los angeles, we would leave san francisco at 9:00 on sunday nights. you get directly into your workloads and go to work. it was a very involved environment. a very pushed environment. in terms of people coming freely, that happened on occasion but a lot of times they were stopped at the door. i know this because i worked on security at one time as well. wednesday nights were always for members only. those nights will be different from the other nights. a person might be assigned to you to see what you are about. who would vouch for you. there was a was a line that was followed and was not always the line it you would think is correct. i'm not saying that i agree with that or that i think is right. the other thing was, when new members came, i was observed for a long time. i was called to the third floor and told you are not to be running through all those girlfriends. you're going to work for the cause. my life to change our ways. perseverance and focus. i will always be associated with jonestown and the people's temple and jim jones. coming back to the u.s. was just horrendous. we were on the news, we were in the newspapers and magazines. we were all considered crazy. people's temple did not attract ignorant people. >> obviously eugene and john know many more people than i do. but the people i interviewed were incredibly bright, they were politically sophisticated. for me, it was very enlightening. i was very politically active in the prisoners right movement. soledad brother, working with the black panthers. i understood that power of working together. having a political vision and working together and wanting to change so much that was wrong in american society. as certain point, this visionary movement, we were losing our leaders, they were being assassinated. the war in vietnam kept grinding on. the racial situation in our cities was getting worse there was a poison in the atmosphere. that is the way it felt to me at the time. we lost to martin luther king, bobby kennedy, john kennedy, malcolm x.. there was a yearning for a new leader to take control. there were a lot of people who size him up as a charlatan right away. if you read his correspondence, and one point he is endorsing nixon. when he came to san francisco he was courting liberals. i don't think most of the people in his movement were cynical. i think you were responding to real needs. it does feel very warm and embracing. it is taking care of the basic human needs. the basic human needs that society should take care of. to this day, our society does not take care of these needs. so i totally understand what the attraction was. being in environments that took care of basic needs. that there was a corruption that set in at the top. whether jim was getting into drugs too much. he saw the drugs becoming a bigger and bigger influence on his father. by the time he got here to san francisco, there was a bubble mentality. a fortress mentality. there were gay activists to work closely with harvey milk. harvey was cynically using jim jones to get those votes. he said go pick up those posters but don't talk to anyone because they take everything you say. at the same time, their letters right here in the files of harvey milk later when people's temple went to guyana, is writing to joseph califano, calling it a beautiful retirement community. the politicians were taking advantage of what jim jones could deliver. jim jones was delivering all sorts of things. he was delivering women to george moscone. he knew what the mayor's tastes were in women. everyone was implicated, willie brown, dianne feinstein. we have to separate what the dream was and how it did take care of people but also be honest about the corruption that did set in their. >> i'm sure you have documented this very well in your book. it has been documented over and over again. he would use whatever platform he needed, he could tell you what you wanted to feel and believe. i am not trying to take away from that. i am getting older. at one time i was one of the youngest surviving members. now i am 55 years old. i just felt there was a side of the story that people did not research. who cares about what happened to day-to-day? how did the people interact? jim jones, hands were as soft as a babies. things got accomplished in that group. it was very well named, the people's temple. sons and i were his personal aides. he was very drugged out. when they told him never again leave jonestown, his life was over. i said to them, jim, you can't even go to georgetown anymore. once you leave this commune you will be arrested. you had to hold him when he walks. he was out of sight sometimes. when he came in to talk, people would say what the hell are you talking about. there was nothing to talk about. there is no more need for faith feelings, no more needs for offerings. no more need for trips. no more need for him to grandstand. we had crops to plant and cattle to herd, irrigation that we needed. for the first few months we had no power. then a generator came and we had power. in the jungle there were no lights. you couldn't see her hand in front of your face. if all these amazing things are happening, who was doing it? not him. not to take anything away from the story of jim jones. i would never take anything from that. but there is also a whole other side of this story the people that made this thing transpire. they could have succeeded very well. some of us discussed that. we almost got to it at one point. it got that serious. had that whole thing is able to go on, my own sister told me personally that she didn't want to be there anymore. she wanted to stay within the organization. but she wants to do it in the united states. david: may i ask a question? i listened to that final fbi tape. it is chilling. i shudder thinking about it. there is an amazing woman, christine miller, who stands up to them at one point. she is the one woman who confronts sam and says, let us not do what you are about to do. and one point, she seems to have people coming to her side. she is such a forceful and passionate woman. but someone stands up and starts to shame her. she loses her momentum at that point. the power shifts back to jim jones. it is one of those what-ifs that you have to think about. what if she had been able to persuade the crowd? why do you think more people in the crowd that night did not respond to her pleas? eugene: any young man that would've stood up and supported her would've been gone. the basketball team was gone. they were ready in georgetown doing importing. and but it would've been any challenge to him publicly would've been gone. there was no one there to take up the mantle. there were meetings before that. in july and august, other members challenged jones. that was the last meeting. anyone that could challenge them are been able to control him, they were gone by then. john: i know the timing for congressman ryan and that group was done. they should have been allowed access at any time they wanted. the people that would've stood up to jim jones were not there. we will carry that for the rest of our lives. stephanie, my niece, the only reason she is alive. people left there all the time. people weren't just kept in there like a concentration camp. that particular time, i had never heard that place that quiet. you could hear a pin drop. everyone stopped working. all 900 people came to that meeting. we were going to play basketball. my sister said to me, take stephanie. i would feel better with her being out of here. stephanie is alive today because of that. she has a beautiful daughter. she is alive because of that decision. there were one of two of us who would leave. they didn't like being in jonestown. anyone who would have stood up to jim jones, that other people felt safe with, they were all gone. >> people came in to say goodbye to you because they did have a premonition? >> i think they just felt like who is going to handle jim jones now? they saw us oppose him. stephen, we know you're right. we would be the mediators. even when he asked us to come back, we told him no. why should we have to come back. i don't know if anyone has read about this, but at the time this all happened, tim jones and myself went to the police dated. -- the police station. he said, we heard that could have been shots fired. we said, get us the right away. like i said, christine stood up. a lot of people think that there was mass suicide, murders. a lot of people have such a devotion to each other. a lot of the kids sat together in a nursery. if one of your kids died, a lot of people weren't going to leave their family there. were some people forced to die? probably. but i think more people did because once you see your loved ones, you are not going to walk away and leave them. i know for a fact, one of the people who got away, she was like my sister. she told my sister, we're getting out of here. >> eugene and then we'll get to of those great questions. >> when they said they were going to the jungle -- understand, this was a triple canopy jungle. in the daytime, it was dark. there were poison frogs. anything that was brightly colored was probably poisonous. it was all kinds of species of ants. going into that jungle at night, if you are running there for safety, imagine what you had to be scared of. this jungle was not friendly in the daytime. and if you didn't have a full moon even when you came into the opening you couldn't see anything. >> a series of really interesting questions i want to telescope out a little bit. perhaps for marshall and david but as well for john and eugene. to what degree did the average san franciscan know of the experience of the people's temple, and in what ways? >> if you buy david's book -- >> it will be for sale and he will sign those. >> how would it be done appropriately, fairly? there is an awareness but what really happened, how did it work out? today i heard of the radio, 35th anniversary of dan white suicide. moving back to the original recently are here, i don't believe there is much consciousness about something as meaningful as this. bad news is not something you want to go back over. it is not like you have a world war ii. it is not some occasion that marks a dark chapters and. as you can tell, it is a very complex thing. what was going on with the time, what do we feel about those times now? >> take us back to those years, the average san franciscan of that time, what do you think they knew? >> i think they were pretty confused. there may be some awareness that it was a political force, especially in city hall's. he was on the housing authority, came to meetings. a couple of buses would pull up, he would show up, there would be enormous thunderous clapping for approval of the minutes. this guy ran the show. there were news stories towards 1977, 1978 towards his influence, questions about his background. people, even his allies, knew there was something off about the guy in terms of how they dealt with in. milk was a big fan publicly, but i'm not sure he knew better. there were others walking the landscape now took part in it, too. kind of saw the dark side and went along with it. >> one of our questions is that the chronicle wasn't doing its job. marshall is the best person to testify. he finally found a way to get that story out. the city editor, because he was compromised by jones, was basically spiking the stories. people were being compromised. people in politics and in media. today, the city is going through its own great agony now of addiction and displacement. i still don't think we have the information that we need to have in this city, the political leadership that is really addressing those issues. finally, i want to say that there was this sheek syndrome at the time. people have their own stories to tell which is always interesting. this woman told me that her mom was a crazy liberal, a free spirit, and she took me as a little girl to people's temple meetings. i think in those circles, jim jones and the people's temple seemed really cool. it was integrated, it was progressive, they had great music, i'm sure a lot of the church services were wonderful experiences. if you weren't a reporter snooping around -- a lot of people felt welcome there and felt this was part of something that they wanted to be part of. >> a professor of history at usf, you get a speech over at uc berkeley, and he said in the 60's or 70's, if you are black in america, the people's temple was really the best place for you to be. i'm sorry, that was you. i agree with you. as far as the opportunity that it offered. jimmy and i, when we came back in 1978, 1979, and we bumped into willie brown at the fillmore. he takes off his mercedes and he is gone. >> he didn't apologize at all about it. >> one of the questions from the audience is what more can be done to bring accountability to political figures like the brothers brown. one of the questions from the audience was, what more can be done to bring accountability to political figures? >> everyone has heard the word untouchable. these people have been in these positions for three decades. it would be difficult if not impossible to make them feel any remorse or responsibility for what they did 30 years ago. i have to say, any person who thinks the same way they thought 30 years ago is not growing up. a player are not the same person they were or support the same things they supported 30 years ago. another thing is that people's temple did not attract ignorant people. in terms of finding things on people or compromising politicians, there were people that came in and joined the temple that knew how to do that. there were people who are gifted at whatever they were gifted that and those tools were used. >> there is what in particular about the doctrine in particular. i think if you have gotten enough of the flavor of this commitment to social justice and providing needs and to having the socialist aspect was huge. this was a long, continuous, interesting train which i think john picked up, as well as the leadership in the church picked up on, a very rich tradition in black churches as well as progressive churches of the united states. it was a really potent stew of those spiritual but also very liberal and progressive's. the questions i think are interesting, one wants to know how much was religion part of a daily existence. others were how the people's temple experience thinking through and after jonestown in november of 78. had a change religion in san francisco. there is a number of questions about religion. did it change religion in san francisco while it was happening and in the aftermath, and then a little bit about religion and the life of the church. >> depended on when you joined people's temple. if you joined in the late 60's, early 70's, it was a religious base. fundamentalism with healing. if you joined from 1972-1975, it was a social movement. if you joined between 1975 and the end day, it was about getting away from this racist, oppressive system, this capitalism gone wild. depending on when you came into the temple dictated how you responded or what you heard and didn't hear. if you came in with a fundamentalist belief that healers heal, that is what you stuck with because that is what drew you. if it was about political causes when you came in, that is what you heard, that is what kept you there. that is all you heard and you dealt with that. you didn't hear any of this other stuff because it was all background noise. you knew why you were there. >> once he saw his power grow and how much he could get away with, his indoctrination changed. i would hear him at home preparing what he would say day today. it would go from talking about religion to social issues. it changed fast. >> marshall and david, in terms of how people's temple changed the face of religion, the practice of religion, do you have any thoughts on that? you chronicled the demise of the iris cap machine and the clashes that brought. >> i think one of the interesting things was the relationship between jim jones and the other african-american pastors and ministers in the area. i think eugene and john can probably talk much more informed about this than i am, but i did find out some interesting stories about the tensions. it seemed to me on the one hand, the people's temple was delivering more than the african-american churches that had been there for some time in some ways. that is one reason why people's temple was able to make roots in this wounded community. there was more energy there, people's temple was more mobilized politically, there was more a sense that they can do something for you. there was a resentment on the part of other african-american churches and there was this upstart and just moved in. he is white. that was weird, wasn't it, i think for a lot of the african-american leadership? they became compromise later on as well. >> there was a resentment, a new guy in town. there was some recruiting, some enlarging of the flock that he needed to do here. he would pay bills at other churches, he would flatter them with letters and calls. taking 10-20 all ladies back to his church when he could. it was a very skillful marketing job and he was very tough-minded about this. as far as the exposure of the church, the endgame diminishing the role of religion and san francisco, that is a big topic. i would hesitate to play reverend here and know what long-term affect the people's temple had on religious life in san francisco. i would like to think not a lot just because of the downbeat kind of history we are citing here. but i'm sure it made a lot of people cynical and doubtful about religious leaders for a while. >> we are to give you the last word. some questions i didn't get to, i'm sorry. i want to re-welcome you back to your library, the toys made from the workshop, the reverend jones robe is out. some powerful artifacts. >> i think the issue is this. you have a white man coming to town. he is bringing 70 to 100 people per bus. all the kids climbed up top. nine 100 people on those buses at any one time. he is getting accommodations. he is having conversations that people always wanted and could not get. he is cutting deals when i asked for the same deal and couldn't get it. this guy over here, jim jones, is not only poaching their members but he is giving them a reason to leave. the end play is, not only did he poach them, not only did he get accommodations, but that he is on the housing commission, which is a powerful position in san francisco. >> a lot of patronage. >> i think back and i started going to college, i was kind of like, i don't want to talk about it. somebody many kids that i met my age, 50% at least knew all about the church. in the bay area it was like some young people about it and their parents wanted them there. the article came out and it was a good article. it was funny because i was like, what article? all i heard was your name. i was like oh, this article. >> i want to thank all of you in the audience and my four amazing panelists, delving into the subject that i think is noble work that the california historical society is honored to do. there is no one simple, easy answer. but between and among these four amazing souls, i think we have had a pretty amazing time. thank all of you for coming. [applause] we will adjourn. talk amongst yourselves, talk to us, by david's book. members of the historical society, if you buy it tonight, just for you -- 20% off special tonight. if you're not a member, my staff can totally take care of you. thanks from all of us and good night. [applause] >> every weekend on american , 48 hours on c-span3 of programs and events that tell our nation's story. this morning beginning at 11:00 eastern we are live at williamsburg bringing you scenes from the 1770's, the eve of the american revolution with reenactments of revolutionaries and loyalist meeting on the streets, will also tour the governor's palace. we will takee day, your calls and tweets. roady morning at 10 on the to the white house rewind, we will hear the aspirations of presidential hopefuls from 1987 with defense secretary donald rumsfeld shares his thoughts on running. 1990 four, dick cheney explores his possible run in the 1996 presidential race. >> i used to think of it as a political calculation. i will try to figure at who else was run and what the prospects were. they more think about it, the more it feels like a political decision. illinois university history professor robert pollock on the caribbean trade. the role in the development of the atlantic colonies and the impact on race and slavery in the 1600s. >> sugar was one of the main motives of the slave trade. of all africans brought to the americas in the 1600s were brought into areas where they were growing and making sugar. it was a huge business. some scholars argue the first enterprise in the western world. >> american history tv come up all weekend every weekend. only on c-span3. on october 26 the world health organization's international agency for research on cancer announced the results of a study on a possible link between possible meet, red meat and cancer. processed -- a classified carcinogenic to humans. also said people should limit their intake of meat. next on american history tv's real america. a look at meat processing for 50 years ago. in the film, a dairy farmer and his sons a tour the plant and see how products such a spam, bacon, and hot dogs are made. >> of the original plan of four melt began on this site in 1891. today is the largest of nine companies slaughtering operation. of popular products. more than 750 different items are produced here. george which are spam, hamm, chili and beef stew. bacon, and dry sausage. >> from balconies, you can look across the entire rooms of assembly. or rather, disassembly activity. the hawk carcasses are broken down into primal cuts. after killing, the carcass passes over a knife which separates the two sides. this is the first step in the disassembly of the pork side. another phase of the disassembly process is the separation of the shoulder and front seat. hormel pigs feet are a delicacy item. the front feet from all of the big stores are used in the manufacture of this product. tastyd pigs feet are very and attractively packaged. meat areulder, and ham taken from this and used for the manufacture of spam, the most popular meet in the country. mixer blades stir the meat under the vacuum and refrigeration until it becomes thoroughly blended. the raw material is then pumped oro the can filling machine the tens are automatically filled and vacuum sealed. thousands of pounds of hot dogs are produced a daily. boneless meat and pork are those selected for those used. all materials are used under constant cold temperatures. the meat is dumped into this huge grinder which is capable of handling loads up to 1000 pounds. freshly ground meat arrives from the grinder. they operator handles the use of meat in the blender. formulated in our own flavoring department are backed for it particular batch. ingredients are now mixed. it is next transported to the hospital. completelyents are multiplied. the meat moves to the stuffing machines. these ingenious machines automatically stuff and link the 84 foot strand. many new and well-established products are set up to check flavor and color. among the many considerations with the marketing of products. , will people like a? these are manufactured for convenience and quality. they build the acceptance of the various products. >> all persons having business before the supreme court of the united states should give their attention. >> monday on c-span's landmark cases, will look at the case the 1962 decision that ruled federal court. chief justice earl warren call it the most important case of his tenure. here's a port inch -- portion of the actual argument. live in fivevoters of the largest cities in tennessee. they are the intended and actual victims of a statutory scheme which devalues, reduces their right to vote to one 20th of the value of the vote given to certain rural residents. >> by the early 20th century, population shifts had the majority of voters from rural areas moving to the city. yet, those districts have smaller populations holding voting power equal to the urban districts. challenged of voters the disparity, and took their case all the way to the supreme court. the case of baker verse car became a landmark case. it has continuing relevance today as the term one person one vote is still being debated. the u.s. solicitor general and douglas smith author of our democracy's doorstep, the inside story of how the supreme court brought one person one vote to the united states. but as life monday night at 9:00 eastern on c-span, c-span3 and c-span radio. for background on each case while you watch, or your copy of landmark cases. available for eight dollars 95 cents at c-span.org/landmark cases. >> i am here to voice my strong support for the greatest people of afghanistan. women and men who have suffered for years under the taliban regime. each and every one of us has the responsibility to stop the suffering caused by malaria because every life in every land matters. and all of us can do something to help. after studying the first ladies and knowing some of them well, ake my own mother-in-law, or fellow texan, lady bird johnson, we benefit i whatever our first laura bush is the first woman in history to be the wife of one president and the daughter-in-law of another. with less than nine months in office, the 9/11 attacks occurred and laura bush helped comfort the

Related Keywords

Vietnam , Republic Of , Japan , Redwood Valley , California , United States , Texas , Fresno , Afghanistan , Williamsburg , Tennessee , San Francisco , Berkeley , Jonestown , Guyana , Los Angeles , Venezuela , Georgetown , Demerara Mahaica , Americans , America , Japanese , American , Texan , Marshall Kilduff , Joe Talbot , Joseph Califano , Cesar Chavez , Tim Jones , Martin Luther King , Douglas Smith , Christina Reddy , Dianne Feinstein , Marcia Snyder , David Talbot , George Moscone , Christine Miller , Susan Goldstein , Eugene Smith , John Cobb , Jim Jones , Earl Warren , Dick Cheney , Jamie Henderson , Jerry Brown Willie , Willie Brown , John Kennedy , Leo Ryan , Aretha Franklin , Jane Fonda , James Baldwin , George Hamm , Laura Bush , Bobby Kennedy , Donald Rumsfeld ,