Hi everybody. @Angie is enjoying the festivities in London right now, so she invited me to post a guest Friday OT.
Once upon a time, a boy was born in small-town Indiana in 1931. Once he grew up to be a man, he moved to Indianapolis and became a noted civil rights leader in the region during the late 1950s and 1960s when this was not easy or popular in a southern-influenced state like Indiana.
He was the director of the city's human rights commission. He and his wife adopted numerous nonwhite children, including being the first white couple in Indiana history to adopt a black child in 1961. The charity work of his organization was extensive. They fed anyone needing a meal. They provided housing to the homeless and refugees, a home to hundreds of children orphaned or stuck in the foster system, and provided a path to keep people out of jail or the nasty, inhuman psychiatric facilities of the 1960s and 1970s.
His organization was multiracial, including every demographic group in significant numbers, during an era when the country was still struggling with the upshot of Brown v. Board and the Civil Rights Act. Many of his followers were older black people who grew up under Jim Crow in the South.
Then they met him -- he called himself God's Socialist. And he gave them love, comfort, and community for the first time in their lives after decades of society beating them down.
Now back to the OT --
What are some of the cults and cult leaders you find morbidly fascinating for their strangeness, the unknown nuances of their story, or for other reasons you'd like to discuss?
Once upon a time, a boy was born in small-town Indiana in 1931. Once he grew up to be a man, he moved to Indianapolis and became a noted civil rights leader in the region during the late 1950s and 1960s when this was not easy or popular in a southern-influenced state like Indiana.
He was the director of the city's human rights commission. He and his wife adopted numerous nonwhite children, including being the first white couple in Indiana history to adopt a black child in 1961. The charity work of his organization was extensive. They fed anyone needing a meal. They provided housing to the homeless and refugees, a home to hundreds of children orphaned or stuck in the foster system, and provided a path to keep people out of jail or the nasty, inhuman psychiatric facilities of the 1960s and 1970s.
His organization was multiracial, including every demographic group in significant numbers, during an era when the country was still struggling with the upshot of Brown v. Board and the Civil Rights Act. Many of his followers were older black people who grew up under Jim Crow in the South.
Then they met him -- he called himself God's Socialist. And he gave them love, comfort, and community for the first time in their lives after decades of society beating them down.
That man's name was Jim Jones. This guy...
I think many of you know how this story ends. Don't drink the Flavor Aid.
I think many of you know how this story ends. Don't drink the Flavor Aid.
Now back to the OT --
What are some of the cults and cult leaders you find morbidly fascinating for their strangeness, the unknown nuances of their story, or for other reasons you'd like to discuss?
