Survivor recalls Jonestown tragedy 40 years later скачать в хорошем качестве

Survivor recalls Jonestown tragedy 40 years later

(14 Nov 2018) The survivors have journeyed over the past 40 years through grief over lost loved ones, feeling like pariahs, building new lives and, finally, acknowledging that many had a role in enabling the Rev. Jim Jones to seize control over his followers. Among them is John Cobb, who was born in a black section of Indianapolis in 1960, when his mother and older siblings already were temple members. Cobb and his family followed Jim Jones from Indiana to California and then to Guyana, where members of the Peoples Temple built an agricultural commune in the jungle. In Jonestown, Cobb was part of Jones' personal security detail and saw the once-captivating minister strung out on drugs, afraid to venture anywhere for fear of his legal problems. Cobb was playing in a basketball tournament in Guyana's capital, Georgetown, when U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan and a group of journalists arrived for a fact-finding mission to Jonestown. Ryan's delegation was leaving with a small group of Jonestown defectors at a nearby airstrip when temple gunmen killed the congressman, three journalists and a church defector. Then Jones ordered members to drink a fruit drink laced with cyanide. A total of 918 people died that day, including more than 300 children. Cobb and other surviving members of the basketball team, who refused Jones' order to return to Jonestown, regret they didn't return to the settlement sooner because they believe they could have saved at least some lives. Cobb lost 11 relatives that day, including his mother, youngest brother and four sisters. Now 58, he owns a modular office furniture business in the East Bay and is married with a daughter. He and other survivors helped create the Jonestown memorial at Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland, Calif., where the remains of more than 400 victims were buried in a mass grave. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...