What Is a Hero?

"Hero" is a word used way too often. People can do admirable things, people can show bravery and courage. But just in doing those things, or in doing the "right" thing, as in what would be expected...is that heroic? I get irritated at how often the word "hero" gets thrown around. Is every firefighter a hero? Is every soldier serving our country a hero? Some would say so, I guess. They are professions that require courage and skill. Webster's defines a hero, in part, as someone who is the "ideal" or a "model." The best of us all. If every soldier who serves is a hero, then that is hardly a model or ideal, because almost by definition a model or ideal should be a rare thing indeed. Even in such events as the recent Boston bombings, when the blasts went off, many people ran to assist and help the injured. Does that make a "hero," or is that just what we would expect of any good, moral, non-cowardly American? To me, a "hero" should exhibit character, courage and bravery, sure. But there should be something more. Perhaps a hero is someone who goes above and beyond what would be expected of any decent person. (One of the other reasons I am hesitant to label every firefighter or soldier a "hero" is that they are compensated for what they do. That is their chosen profession. In the military veteran situation, they also receive still generous G.I. Bill benefits). Perhaps a hero is someone who stands up for what is right or for the rights of others, even in the face of possible harm to themselves.

Christine Miller was a hero. She was born in 1918 in South Texas. She grew up a black woman in prejudiced times, working in her youth in cotton fields and losing her parents at a young age. She knew hardship. But she persevered, got a job as a clerk, and ended up in Los Angeles, working her way up to a comfortable middle class existence. So far, not exactly heroic, but admirable considering her circumstances. But she also stood up to a megalomaniac homicidal dictator/messiah figure deep in the jungle of a faraway land, called him out on his dangerous bullsh*t when it mattered most even when he had an armed militia willing to carry out his bidding. She stood up, even though she was relatively uneducated, and tried to engage him on his own terms, taking his own complicated ideology and turning it against him. She stood up and demanded that the lives of hundreds of children be spared. She was relatively alone, as a crowd of people shouted her down. Unfortunately she was unsuccessful. Those hundreds of children died on that stormy November day in 1978. So did the megalomaniac. So did his militia. So did Christine Miller. Almost 1000 people died needlessly that day. But she tried to stop the madness. It took courage for the few who did survive to take off running into the jungle. But it took a hero to stay there and try and save the innocent. That is the difference between having courage and being a hero. Christine Miller gave her life to try to save others.

Christine Miller joined Jim Jones's Peoples Temple for the same reason many others did. She wanted to help people and believed that life could be more just, more perfect. Forget the stereotype of mindless drones "drinking the Kool-Aid." These were good people, idealistic people who were trying to live a better life. Actually, there were many reasons people entered the orbit of Jim Jones. Some were very educated progressive-minded people who were attracted to Jones's message of racial harmony and socialism. But many within the flock of Peoples Temple were poor, many minorities, who had lived a hard life. Jim Jones and his church lifted the downtrodden from a life of poverty and gave them more. Jones welcomed the poor, former drug addicts...society's outcasts. You have to understand this because for a very long time, the message of Jim Jones was good. It was revolutionary and it was backed up by work and deeds. It would take another post entirely to unravel his complex ideology, how it started in the Pentecostal tradition and slowly transformed into a Marxist message of revolution. And also his spiral into madness. But Jones already gets too much ink. Let's talk about Christine.

On that morning of November 18, 1978 in Jonestown, Guyana, when the madness of Jim Jones manifested itself in the implementation of his "revolutionary suicide" doctrine, Christine stepped up to challenge him. We know this because it is all recorded on tape. Jones was an obsessive about recording everything, so the beginning of the mass suicide/murder is all available to hear. Naturally, it is heartwrenching to listen to, but it is fascinating and instructive as well.

That morning, after congressman Leo Ryan and his entourage were attacked at the nearby airstrip by Jones's goons (Ryan, having finished a factfinding mission to Jonestown, is the only congressman in our history to be gunned down and killed while in office), Jones knew the gig was up and he decided to end it all for everybody. As his followers lined up for the poisoned drink (while surrounded by Jones's armed guards, so it is an open question as to how many did this willingly), Christine stands up and starts to ask questions.

Christine first asks if there is an alternative. How about going to Russia? Jones had often touted his "connections" to the Soviets to his followers, and Christine here is now calling him out on that. She says simply, "is it too late for Russia?" This takes Jones by surprise, so much so that he makes a show of getting one of his lieutenants to make "a call" to the USSR. Christine then points out that only a few dozen disgruntled followers had left with Ryan to the airstrip, and so many hundreds of others decided to stay in Jonestown. But Jones is so unhinged, the thought of even a few abandoning him is apocalyptic. (Also, he knows of the carnage at the airstrip, and even in his state, he knows that he cannot get away with gunning down a sitting U.S. congressman).

Jones is despondent and slurring his speech (as he is heavily drugged), but Christine pushes on. "As long as there is life, there is hope," she asserts. Christine then makes a bold claim, especially considering the Peoples Temple collective, that she as an individual, and all of the other individuals present, have the right to choose for themselves. At this point, she is violently shouted down by some in the crowd, and told that she has lived a full life up to this point only by the grace of Jones. She then moves on to plead with Jones to at least spare the children, the hundreds of children in Jonestown who cannot make this choice. She even smartly throws out the name of his own youngest son, a last ditch effort to personalize the carnage for him. At this point she is cut off and the grim job begins. If you want to hear it, it is easily found online and in documentaries. I won't post it here, though.

We don't really know exactly how Christine Miller met her end. Several accounts reveal that those who did object, and there were some, were forcefully injected. (Jones, the coward that he was, did not take his own poison. He was found at the foot of his "throne" with a bullet through his head. Self-inflicted? Was he murdered?) I would imagine that Christine's fate was forced on her. The strategy was to start with the babies and young children first in order to break the will of the adults. We know this because Jones and his inner circle had worked out this strategy well ahead of time. But also the dissidents were to be injected first as well, by force if necessary.

Christine Miller stands as a hero, someone who did everything in her power to stop this awful day from unfolding as it did. Who risked being ostracized and ridiculed by the only community she had, or worse even risked violent attack. She tried to protect the most innocent in Jonestown, the hundreds of children. She is not famous, she is really only known to that niche of historian like myself who have been fascinated by Jonestown and who want to know why. She spoke for those too scared or unable to speak that day.