page_title: Leo Ryan
section_title: Anniversaries
hierarchical_section_title: Leo Ryan / Legacy and honors / Anniversaries
caption_attribution_description: Leo J. Ryan Park, Taken with a Canon PowerShot A620. [1]
context_page_description: Leo Joseph Ryan Jr. was an American teacher and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the U.S. Representative from California's 11th congressional district from 1973 until his assassination during the Jonestown massacre in 1978.
  After the Watts riots of 1965, Ryan took a job as a substitute school teacher to investigate and document conditions in the area. In 1970, he launched an investigation into California prisons. While presiding as chairman of the Assembly committee that oversaw prison reform, he used a pseudonym to enter Folsom State Prison as an inmate. During his time in Congress, Ryan traveled to Newfoundland to investigate the practice of seal hunting. He was also famous for vocal criticism of the lack of Congressional oversight of the Central Intelligence Agency, and co-authored the Hughes–Ryan Amendment, passed in 1974.
  Ryan was shot and killed at an airstrip in Guyana on November 18, 1978, as he and his party were attempting to leave. He had traveled to Guyana to investigate claims that people were being held against their will at the Peoples Temple Jonestown settlement.
context_section_description: On the 25th anniversary of Ryan's death, a special memorial tribute was held in his honor in Foster City, California. His family and friends, including his three daughters and Jackie Speier, attended. The San Francisco Chronicle reported, "Over and over today, people described a great man who continually exceeded his constituents' expectations."
  Near the end of the memorial service, parents of those who had died in Jonestown stood to honor and thank Ryan for giving his life while trying to save their children. After the service ended, mounted police escorted the family and friends into Foster City's Leo J. Ryan Memorial Park. A wreath was laid next to a commemorative rock that honors Ryan.
  The same year, his daughter Erin Ryan, an aide to Speier, attended a memorial for those who died at Jonestown, held at the Evergreen Cemetery in Oakland. On each anniversary of Leo Ryan's death, Jackie Speier and Patricia Ryan visit his grave at the Golden Gate National Cemetery.
  For the 30th anniversary, Speier sponsored a bill to designate the United States Postal Service facility at 210 South Ellsworth Avenue in San Mateo, California, the "Leo J. Ryan Post Office Building". President George W. Bush signed it into law on October 21, 2008. On November 17, 2008, Speier spoke at the dedication ceremony at the post office. In part, she said,
  There are those – still, thirty years after his passing – who question his motives, or the wisdom of his actions. But criticism was just fine with Leo. Leo Ryan never did anything because he thought it would make him popular. He was more interested in doing what he knew was right.
caption: Sign at the Leo J. Ryan Memorial Park
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