Interestingly, Jones may well have been the inspiration for the rainbow flag, which flies prominently above Harvey Milk Plaza today, and thousands of others locations throughout the Western world. The history of the flag, first designed and sewed by Milk’s personal friend Gilbert Baker, is obscure (intentionally perhaps?), but Jones was fond of proclaiming himself to be head of the “rainbow family.” It is not at all far-fetched to suppose that it was Jim Jones who introduced the term to Milk and Baker, and hence the idea for the flag, which first flew in 1978, a few months before the Jonestown massacre and Milk’s assassination. Further supporting Milk’s connection with Jones is the strange and macabre fact that Milk’s ashes were mixed with grape kool-aid before being scattered into the sea.

Very little of this history makes its way into the official story. I am glad I avoided the film Milk, and not because I object to the subject matter, but because learning about the lies of omission (Jim Jones was out of the picture) would have ruined it for me. Sometimes, historians get closer to the truth than those who lived it, because they are not constrained by political loyalties, taboos, and personal concerns. Hopefully, when enough time has passed and Dianne Feinstein, Willie Brown and Jerry Brown are but memories, someone will produce a film that truly does justice to the urban political revolution of the 1970s, which was the seed out of which the contemporary progressive machine emerged.

On looking back, it seems to me that Harvey Milk, George Moscone, Dianne Feinstein and Willie Brown, despite their political achievements, remain in the shadow of Jim Jones. For all their success and determination, they were children under the same father, following a vision they didn’t come up with themselves. Dianne Feinstein and Willie Brown may have lived to see another day, but they, too, drank the kool-aid.