God's Socialist
A deep dive into Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple movement, exploring the dark journey from idealism to tragedy.
Episodes in This Series
#11 - God's Socialist: Prologue
This is the first episode of a series exploring Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple. This episode is only a prologue, a few stories and ideas to serve as a backdrop for everything to come.
#12 - God's Socialist, pt. 2: What Child Is This?
Part 2 of a podcast series on Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple movement. An eccentric loner as a child, Jim Jones finds purpose in the fight for racial and economic justice.
#13 – God's Socialist, pt. 3: Head North, Then Turn Left
In this episode I trace the trajectory of the civil rights movement through the 1960s, and the gradual shift in emphasis and leadership from the stoic southern marchers following Martin Luther King, Jr to the militant Black Power soldiers of the northern ghettos.
#14 - God's Socialist, pt. 4: Sex, Drugs & Revolution
This episode discusses the beginning of Peoples' Temple's slide into radicalism after Jim Jones leads his people to California. We also talk about the development of 1960s radical political movements and Jonestown conspiracy theories.
#15 - God's Socialist, pt. 5: The Wounded King
This episode begins where the '60s end, when the radicalism of that decade crashes headlong into the diminishing expectations of 1970s America. The Weather Underground veers off toward its explosive climax.
#16 – God's Socialist, pt. 6: No Driver At The Wheel
The student movement is dead. The Black Panther Party is torn apart by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. Activism devolves into struggle sessions and terrorism, as the movement for civil rights and social justice is left to 'drunks, hypes, freaks, and madmen.'
#17 – God's Socialist, pt. 7: A Gallant, Glorious, Screaming End
Jim Jones and Peoples Temple follow the remnants of the 1970s radical left into the fire. WARNING: Extreme language and disturbing content.
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