Congresswoman Jackie Speier

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Forty years after the Jonestown massacre changed her life, U.S. Congresswoman Jackie Speier tells her extraordinary story in UNDAUNTED: Surviving Jonestown, Summoning Courage, and Fighting Back (Little A/Amazon). UNDAUNTED shares the personal struggles—as a widow, a mother, and an outspoken victim of gun violence—that have shaped Congresswoman Speier’s unwavering dedication to her constituents.

In November 1978, 28-year-old Jackie Speier, a congressional legal adviser, was part of the fateful delegation to investigate cult leader Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana. While helping victims to escape, the delegation was ambushed on the tarmac and Speier was shot five times at point-blank range. Her injuries were near-fatal, and after 22 hours in a cargo hold, she was miraculously rescued and brought home to the United States to embark on a long and harrowing recovery.

Her experiences inspired her work in public service, and in 2008 she was elected to Congress, filling the seat of longtime mentor Leo Ryan, who was killed in Jonestown. But her path was not without significant challenges, as Speier recounts in UNDAUNTED. Despite ongoing health struggles stemming from the shooting, and personal tragedies including the loss of her husband while she was pregnant with her second child, Speier continued to blaze an unparalleled path in regional and national politics.

She writes, “With the hindsight of 40 years, I see that my baptism by gunfire guided me into the life I was meant to live: one of public service, one that would ignite the courage to make my voice heard, and one that would carry with it a visceral appreciation for each new day.”