KTIV NewsChannel 4 Sioux City IA: News, Weather and SportsIowan remembers Jonestown tragedy, innocent victims

Iowan remembers Jonestown tragedy, innocent victims

AMES, Iowa (KTIV) - Thirty years ago people around the world were just learning about the mass suicides at a place called Jonestown. That's the South American settlement founded by the Reverend Jim Jones.

More than a third of the over nine-hundred that died that day were children.

Although decades have past, the thoughts and questions that surround Jonestown, and the people who were in search of a better life are still in the mind of an Iowa woman.

They're the forgotten ones. Voices silenced thirty years ago.

People so committed to a movement that they picked up stakes and moved to a remote land in the jungles of South America.

"It was a real mix of people, a very diverse group of people and yet there were these common goals that they shared," Iowa State University Professor of Religious Studies said.

They were in search of something better. Equality, a life free of racism. All things preached in the People's Temple Church by Reverand Jim Jones.

Professor Sawyer was a liason for the Lietenant Governor of California during the time leading up to Jonestown.

In her role, she worked with people involved with social change movements, including members of the People's Temple.

Under scrutiny, many members left the United States in the summer of 1977 for the jungles of Guyana.

Fear and concern from family and friends followed the move.

"It was one of those situations where you're hearing different stories from different sides and you're just at a loss really to be able to sort it out," Iowa State University Professor of Religious Studies said.

Before the massacre, Sawyer talked with concerned family members and friends.

"It wasn't until really close to the end that we became concerned about what was actually happening," Sawyer said.

Children and babies were forced to drink a deadly mix of poison and punch. Adults, convinced by the words of their leader, willingly took their own lives.

After Jonestown, Sawyer came to Iowa where she co-founded the African American Studies program at Iowa State University.

She says something lost since that November Day is the true sense of the people who were looking for a new way of life.

"The goodness of the people, the intent of the people to seek justice and to help create a world where people were treated fairly. The press seemed to me at the time, utterly incapable of viewing this as a human tragedy and of exploring the spirit of the people, compassion, the values of the people," Sawyer said.

A mass grave for the victims of the Jonestown tragedy now stands in Oakland, California.