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OAKLAND (CBS 5 / AP / BCN) ― On the 30th anniversary of the Jonestown tragedy, organizers of an annual memorial service in Oakland displayed the first panels of a 37-foot-long stone wall that is to be inscribed with the names and ages of the 918 victims of the violence in Guyana, including U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan and three newsmen.

For a quarter century, efforts to create a monument like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial have dragged on for lack of funding.

But the Rev. Jynona Norwood on Tuesday pulled covers from two shiny black granite slabs on sturdy trailers parked at Evergreen Cemetery, where 406 unidentified and unclaimed bodies of Jonestown's victims were buried in a mass grave after other cemeteries didn't want to take them.

Mourners gasped, and tearful survivors scattered red and black carnations on the panels.

"Touch their names because touching their names is very healing," said Norwood, who lost 27 relatives in the Nov. 18, 1978, mass murders and suicides orchestrated by the Rev. Jim Jones, whose People's Temple was headquartered in San Francisco. "Finally, they have a resting place. (It) is a fitting memorial that will begin the healing process... the victims' honor has now been restored."

The work for the memorial, however, is far from over. 

Despite a $30,000 down payment, another $70,000 or more must be raised to complete the seven-foot-tall monument with an eight-foot red granite central panel bearing the names of 305 children who perished in Jonestown. Norwood said she's particularly outraged that so many children, including her 3-month-old cousin, died in the massacre.

The crowd of almost 200 including temple survivors and relatives of the victims was one of the largest since Norwood started holding services to honor Jonestown's dead, whose bloated bodies have provided a lasting image of one of the most terrible American tragedies of the last century.

In recent years, more survivors have been attending the service, as it has become more widely accepted that they were ordinary people betrayed by a charismatic minister who lured them to an integrated church with programs for the poor.

The Rev. Amos Brown of the Third Baptist Church in San Francisco and the head of the city's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said he told Jones to his face in 1976, two years before the massacre, that he thought Jones was a fraud but most Bay Area political and religious leaders were "conned" by Jones and supported him.

"Jim had so much support from the White House (which was occupied by Jimmy Carter at the time) to the outhouse," Norwood added. "Jim accrued so much credibility with pastors, politicians and the press and he lied to them and seduced them."

Norwood said her son joined Jones' church, leading her to kidnap him and go into hiding so they wouldn't be killed.

San Francisco police Officer Yulanda Williams, who escaped from Jonestown twice with the help of Jones' son and a local family who let her use their telephone, said she and her family were "devoted members" of Jones' church for 10 years because they were lured by his promise of "racial harmony and social justice."

"We were willing to sacrifice for racial justice and freedom" but once she went to Jonestown she realized "there was one road in and no way out unless it was in a body bag," Williams said.

The mass carnage occurred after 15 members defected during Ryan's fact-finding mission to Jonestown.

Temple gunmen killed Ryan, three journalists and a defector on a nearby airstrip and all of their names will be on the monument, Norwood said.

But Norwood made clear during the service that James Warren Jones will not have his name in granite.

"To put Jim Jones' name on that wall is an insult ... to all the dead," she said. "(He was) the most evil man who walked on this earth."

Jim Jones Jr., the minister's adopted son, disagrees.

"The tragedy is we're villianizing Jim Jones," said the medical equipment salesman, who was outside of Jonestown for a basketball game that last day. "Jim Jones was also a victim, of his own madness. We need to memorialize all the bodies, as a great loss."

Two other memorial gestures also marked the anniversary.

On Monday, a post office in San Mateo was renamed after Ryan the first congressman slain in the line of duty as a result of legislation sponsored by Jackie Speier, who was severely wounded in the airstrip shooting. She was elected this year to Ryan's old congressional seat.

And Sunday night, Lucite panels with the names of the 900-plus victims were displayed in San Francisco before being permanently housed at the African American Historical and Cultural Society there. All the names of the dead were read aloud during a private gathering of temple survivors.

"This is the first time they will be recognized as human beings," said Lela Howard, who organized the memorial and whose aunt Mary Pearl Willis died. "It restores the humanity of these people and gives their names back."

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