The Katherine Massey Book Club @ The C.O.W.S. hosts the 6th study session on Michael Meiers' Was Jonestown a CIA Medical Experiment. This infamous mass murder has countless parallels to our recent literary selections - Columbine, Michael Swango, and The Hart murder-suicide. The Rev. Jim Jones, a White man born in Indiana, took a thousand people from California to Guyana, South America. On November 18th, 1978, Jones killed nearly all 1,000 of his mostly black followers and orchestrated the assassination of Congressman Leo Ryan. Some were shot, but most were poisoned with cyanide, just like "Double-0 Swango." For nearly half a century, this event has been conventionally understood as a bunch of brainwashed black loons following a White charlatan to their demise in the jungle. Meiers' work suggests something far more nefarious. Last week, we learned about the big move to Ukiah, California for Rev. Jones and the Peoples Temple. The reverend recruited black children from the Oakland slums - which could have included little Bobby Hutton of the Black Panther Party. Rev. Jones and his White staff brandished fire arms and employed German shepherds to dominate the black people at the Ukiah "concentration camp." Meiers says part of the brainwashing included White staff pilfering books from their black captives, all the while, subsidizing the outfit by confiscating the member's social security checks and other valuables. Jones even looted the US Department of Agriculture's supplies of powdered milk and other food stuffs to externalize costs of the experiment. We heard the first rumblings of discontented members ("The Gang of Eight") and learned of Jones' power to silence critical members of the press who might closely scrutinize the new "Golden State" residents' pretend church. #AcresOfSkin #MurderInMemphis #TheCOWS15Years INVEST in The COWS – http://paypal.me/TheCOWS Cash App: https://cash.app/$TheCOWS CALL IN NUMBER: 605.313.5164 CODE: 564943#