Thirty two years ago, on this day in 1978, about 900 people committed suicide in Jonestown Guyana after getting a directive from the charismatic People’s Temple cult leader Jim Jones.Incidentally, they were all followers of Jim Jones and getting a directive from this charismatic religious leader, these people killed themselves by drinking cyanide laced punch. Those who feared of killing themselves were either shot or given poison to die.Jonestown incident is still considered to be one of the most tragic incidents in the history of mankind.
Now a group of people who were lucky enough to be survivors of this great tragedy, have decided to built a granite monument where the names of all the 900 people died will be inscribed. This will be an honor to the people who died in such a tragedy. There is a woman who lost 30 members of her family on that fateful day and she wants to remember them through the monument.
There was no speeches or tears at the time of incident. People hugged each other, as if it was a family reunion and then consumed poison all at a time and died instantly. Death was so obvious and casual to them.
Out of the nine hundred people who died, most of them were African Americans from the area of Oakland and San Francisco who followed Jin Jones to the jungles to form a utopian society. When journalists were visiting that place to investigate the truth, many of them were shot dead and never returned with their reports. Out of the nine hundred people who died, 305 were children. Many bodies of the Jonestown tragedy remain unclaimed since the whole family had died. All the bodies were laid to rest in a mass grave overlooking the bay.
