Jim Jones was born James Warren Jones in Crete, Indiana. The only child of James Thurman Jones, a disabled veteran, and Lynetta Putnam, a waitress and factory worker, he grew up in a shack without plumbing in nearby Lynn. His abusive father backed the Ku Klux Klan, while his doting mother embraced progressive politics. Neither parent attended church.

The parents separated in 1945, and Jones moved with his mother to Richmond, Indiana. There he worked as an orderly in a hospital where he boarded while attending high school. After completing high school in January of 1949, Jones entered Indiana University. On June 12, 1949, he married Marceline Baldwin, a nurse he had met at the hospital. They had one son and adopted seven children of various races.

In 1950, the Joneses moved to Indianapolis, where Jones sporadically attended Butler University, receiving a B.Ed. in 1961. A Marxist, he decided to promote socialism through...