The University of Southern Indiana will host a presentation by Laura Johnston Kohl, a Jonestown Survivor and author of Jonestown Survivor: An Insider’s Look, at 6:30 p.m. Monday, April 10 in Carter Hall located in University Center West. The presentation, entitled “Jonestown Survivor – Evolution of Peoples Temple in the 1960s and 1970s,†is free and open to the public.
Kohl, spent nine years in California and Guyana with Peoples Temple, the religious organization led by Jim Jones. She was away from the organization on November 18, 1978, when 918 people died from cyanide poisoning, and was one of only 87 who lived through the event. After spending 20 years recovering and rebuilding, Kohl became a speaker and author on Jonestown and communal studies.
Kohl is a regular contributor to the Jonestown Report, a publication from the Jonestown Institute. She is organizing a survivors’ visit to Jonestown with a documentary crew. Kohl has bachelor’s degrees in psychology and philosophy from the University of New York and a bilingual teaching credential from Chapman University.
Kohl is a writer, a bilingual teacher, a regular public speaker and a presenter and board member of the Communal Studies Association.
The presentation is the spring 2017 lecture for USI’s Center for Communal Studies, which promotes the study of contemporary and historic communal groups, intentional  communities and utopias. For more information, contact Jennifer Greene at 812-464-1832 or jagreene@usi.edu.
