Carolyn Jessop - Carolyn Jessop was born into the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a group splintered from and renounced by the Mormon Church, and spent most of her life in Colorado City, Arizona, the main base of the FLDS.
Since leaving the group in 2003, she has lived in West Jordan, Utah, with her eight children. Jessop is the author of Escape, the first-person account of life inside an ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect, and one woman's flight to freedom with her children.
Carolyn Jessop was born into the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a group splintered from and renounced by the Mormon Church, and spent most of her life in Colorado City, Arizona, the main base of the FLDS. Since leaving the group in 2003, she has lived in West Jordan, Utah, with her eight children.
Jessop will discuss and sign her memoir Escape, the dramatic first-person account of life inside an ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect, and one woman's courageous flight to freedom with her children- Tattered Cover
It seems these types of books of escaping from fundamentalist religion have been gaining popularity over the past couple of years. Another book I would highly recommend is Fundamentally Misguided about a young woman from the Bible Belt who was raised fundamentalist and later got caught up in a Y2K cult at the turn of the millennium. A brave memoir indeed.
If you want even more info, check out the Utah and Arizona Attorney General's report on child abuse in polygamous societies. I have a link to in on the bottom right of the opening page of my website. It will blow your mind!
The very idea that a person has that much power over another is incredible. To combat the fundamentalism that would cause these kinds of groups, we must give information to the members that they are free and do not have to be enslaved by another.
I can't believe we as Americans allowed something like this to happen to women and children for so long in this country. I understand the right to practice your religion but human rights in Colorado City have been violated en masse for long enough, don't you think?
Indeed. I used to live very close to the border of Colorado City, and polygamist women would come into the restaurant that I worked at all the time wearing very dark shades. I was too naive to know at the time why they wore them so often.