Community Corner

Court Hearing: Should Leader's Name Appear on Jonestown Memorial?

A hearing today in Alameda County Superior Court will discuss a controversial memorial to the 918 victims of the 1978 massacre at Jonestown in Guyana, including Rev. Jim Jones.

Bay City News 

A controversial memorial to the 918 victims of the 1978 massacre at Jonestown in Guyana that includes the name of the Rev. Jim Jones will be the subject of a hearing in Alameda County Superior Court on Thursday.

Four granite plaques that include all 918 names, including that of Jones, were set in place on Monday at the Evergreen Cemetery at 6450 Camden Ave. in Oakland, where 409 of the victims are buried, according to Fielding McGehee of the San Diego-based Jonestown Institute, who is part of the group that raised money for the memorial project.

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But McGehee said the Rev. Jynona Norwood, the senior pastor of the Family Christian Cathedral in Inglewood, who lost 27 family members, including her mother, in the mass suicide on Nov. 18, 1978, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking an injunction that would halt further construction on the site and have Jones' name removed from the memorial.

Norwood did not return multiple phone calls today seeking comment.

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McGehee said the granite plaques have been placed next to the original memorial that was erected at the Evergreen Cemetery in May 1979 by the Guyana Emergency Relief Committee. He said the original memorial does not have the names of the victims.

Jones headed the People's Temple, which was headquartered in San Francisco and then moved to Guyana.

Memorial services for the Jonestown victims are held at the Evergreen Cemetery every Nov. 18.

At the service on Nov. 18, 2008, Norwood said Jones was "the most evil man who walked on this earth."

Norwood said he and the others who raised funds for the memorial plaques decided to include Jones' name because the memorial is for historical purposes to note all the people who died at Jonestown.

He said, "There is no prominence for his name because the names are listed in alphabetical order and there are two other victims named Jones."

Norwood displayed the beginnings of her own memorial wall at the memorial service at the Evergreen Cemetery on Nov. 18, 2008, but Ron Haulman, the cemetery's executive director, said her wall was never completed.

Haulman said the memorial that Norwood wanted was not approved by cemetery officials.

McGehee said a dedication ceremony for the four granite plaques will be held on May 29.


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