Ebooks for the Classroom+Faculty

Peoples Temple and Black Religion in America
ISBN: 9780253110831
Platform/Publisher: Project MUSE / Indiana University Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Chapters; Download: Chapters
Subjects: African American churches; African Americans;

The Peoples Temple movement ended on November 18, 1978, when more than 900 men, women, and children died in a ritual of murder and suicide in their utopianist community of Jonestown, Guyana. Only a handful lived to tell their story. As is well known, Jim Jones, the leader of Peoples Temple, was white, but most of his followers were black. Despite that, little has been written about Peoples Temple in the context of black religion in America. In 10 essays, writers from various disciplines address this gap in the scholarship. Twenty-five years after the tragedy at Jonestown, they assess the impact of the black religious experience on Peoples Temple.

Rebecca Moore, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at San Diego State University, has published widely on Peoples Temple and Jonestown and maintains a website on Peoples Temple.



Anthony B. Pinn is the Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University, and is the author of Varieties of African American Religious Experience.



Mary R. Sawyer is Professor of Religious Studies at Iowa State University, and the author of Black Ecumenism: Implementing the Demands of Justice.