INTRODUCTION TO LAURA JOHNSTON KOHL
Laura Johnston Kohl was a teen activist working to integrate public facilities in the Washington, D.C., area. She actively fought for civil rights and free speech, and against the Vietnam War throughout the 1960s.

She was devastated by the assassinations of so many courageous leaders while in high school and college and tried to make the world around her more humane. After trying to effect change single-handedly, she found she needed more hands. She joined Peoples Temple in 1970, living and working in the progressive religious movement in both California and Guyana.

A fluke saved her from the mass murders and suicides on November 18, 1978, when 913 of her beloved friends died in Jonestown.
Soon after this, Synanon, a residential community, helped her gradually affirm life, and she married and adopted a young son.

In 1991, she got to work, finished her studies, and became a public school teacher. On the 20th anniversary of the deaths in Jonestown, she looked up fellow survivors of the Jonestown tragedy and they have worked to put the jigsaw puzzle together that was Peoples Temple. Her perspective has evolved as new facts have cleared up mysteries and she has had time to reflect. Her mission continues to acknowledge, write about, and speak about why the members joined Peoples Temple, why they went to Guyana, and who they were. She is contact with fellow survivors many times during the year and helps organize gatherings twice a year.

Laura Johnston Kohl has been interviewed on television and radio, in documentaries, and for both domestic and foreign press. She is also contacted frequently by family members of those who perished in Guyana and scholars who are trying to understand the calamity of the ending. She is a presenter at the Communal Studies Association Conference each year, as well as a published author, and regular contributor to the SDSU-sponsored website at http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/. She is also on the Peoples Temple Speakers Bureau for the Jonestown Report.

This year, she published her autobiography JONESTOWN SURVIVOR: An Insiders Look. She continues to expand her understanding about Peoples Temple, and herself. And, she is determined to give dignity to her friends who died in pursuit of their dreams. Her most recent projects, besides teaching 6th grade in San Diego public schools, include writing and making presentations about Peoples Temple, and identifying and posting thousands of photographs of Peoples Temple history on-line. Hers is an amazing story

She can be reached at: lkohl1920@hotmail.com
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