In 1988, Fielding McGehee and I commissioned San Francisco artist JoeSam. to create a series of drawings for The Need for a Second Look at Jonestown. At the time, he was best known for his Black West series, which focused on the contributions of African American cowboys and other significant figures from that era. He had also completed a Black Bible series, which interpreted fifty-three scenes from the Bible, in which all of the figures were Black.
We didn’t give JoeSam. any instructions other than to provide seventeen images, one for each chapter and one facing the title page. The results were amazing—they told the story of Peoples Temple and Jonestown from beginning to end from a distinctly African American perspective. The line drawings are both representational and yet non-representational, depicting the tyranny of ghetto life, the escape into the promise of Peoples Temple, the immigration to Guyana, and the tyranny of Jim Jones in Jonestown. Race is a clear element of all the drawings, with, for example, Jones surrounded by White individuals while Black congregants flee back to the United States.
