Remember the good times and the bad, the promise of a new generation in a time of transition, the love, hate and wonder of a decade like none other in 7 Sanctuaries.
It was a radical time, filled with promise, hope, and exciting new opportunities. It was a time when people made sure their voices were heard; they changed our world forever. It was thrilling and frightening and challenging. That time was the 1960s.
When facing times of tumultuous transformation, people often seek solace and comfort in safe havens—sanctuaries, if you will—to protect themselves and their loved ones from the stormy world around them.
Katie Franklin grew up during the Great Depression and saw the worst of poverty and destitution. As a young girl, she vowed to help “the least of these,” and that vow would ultimately lead her to confront the legal authorities and side with the Freedom Riders. George Roberts put every dime he’d saved from his military service into Springlake Hardware, and he was determined to keep it safe from the hippies and the coloreds and anyone else who would try to take advantage of him. Following seminary, Reverend Stephen Phillips came to Springlake as the “Radical Preach,” committed to saving kids from decadence, drugs, and discrimination. These and other characters each present their stories of small-town living in the ‘60s within the context of the sanctuary they have selected for safety. Along the way, they meet a cast of interesting characters: unusual people: Dave, the gentle giant stoner, and his flowerchild girlfriend, Missy; “Crew Cut” Cale Kinney; Mayor El Rawlings; Coach Bridges; Sunni; and Larry Watson, the boy who sported the first Afro in Springlake, Florida. Their lives intertwine throughout the decade and come together in one night of fear, tragedy and hope.
Through it all - the turmoil, the rock music, the assassination of powerful leaders, the tent revivals, KKK rallies, space walks and the war, the little community of Spring Lake grows and flourishes and changes, as does our nation and as does our world.
Professional Reviews
Cheryl Hibbard, ForeWord Reviews
The concept of sanctuary often carries religious overtones, and there is indeed something personally sacred about any place where an individual feels safe and secure. Ben A. Sharpton has taken the concept further in his new novel, 7 Sanctuaries, offering seven different but intertwined tales of people seeking and finding their own safe havens from turmoil in the racially divided American South of the 1960s.
The fictional Springlake, Florida, serves as the small-town setting for Sharpton’s overlapping stories, and the cast of characters is extensive and varied, but it is the 1960s that function as the star attraction. Sharpton’s details are incredibly precise, and his tales are certain to evoke very clear memories for anyone who lived through that era. Younger readers, in particular, are cautioned that the language the characters use is not considered politically correct today, but Sharpton’s depiction of the place and the times is decidedly accurate.
Racial strife, segregation, integration, and their related societal issues simmer in the background as the decade begins. As the Civil Rights Movement makes headway, even in the small town of Springlake, accepted norms begin to crumble, and the simmer soon turns to a full boil. What is billed as an “All-America Rally” turns out to be a gathering of the Ku Klux Klan.
Confusion and uncertainty reign as unknown consequences loom. It is a time of serious change, and as one character wryly comments, “Sure, some people say they like change ... But when it gets right down to it, the only thing good about change is the feeling we get when we drop a little into the offering plate.” In such tumultuous days, people seek sanctuary. Sharpton offers it to his characters in their homes, their schools, their work, their churches, and more, but it is never quite enough.
An exciting new president has been elected and tragically assassinated; other assassinations soon follow. The Vietnam War has begun to rage in a land far from sunny Florida, but it all comes directly into Springlake’s homes via live footage on the newly graphic evening news. The music, the hair, the drugs, and simply the general attitude of the 60s take
hold among America’s youth with a strength and vengeance that frightens their elders. Memories of World War II and the Korean conflict that followed are still fresh, and all the new turmoil seems so senseless. Sanctuary cannot be the same for everyone.
Sharpton captures the mood and spirit of the era so well that it is easy to forget sometimes that his story is fiction. The characters are realistic, and many feel positively familiar, like someone known years ago, back home. The 60s were a time of great transition and turbulence, but many who lived through them neither can nor want to forget. Those less familiar with the era may trust that Sharpton’s 7 Sanctuaries offers a valid portrayal of some of what small-town America faced during those years. In addition to that, it is simply a darn good story.
Norm Goldman, Book Pleasures
In the form of narrative history Ben A. Sharpton with his 7 Sanctuaries looks back over the defining moments of the 1960s- an era, as he states in the Preface, that was fuelled by idealism of the youth crusading for peace, prosperity, and purpose, challenging old norms and conventional wisdom. Although we often believe it only affected large cities as New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, it nonetheless had a profound effect on all America including unfamiliar rural towns that likewise experienced the growing pains of the decade. It is the decade when President Kennedy was elected and assassinated, the Freedom Riders with white civil rights activists are testing federal laws that granted equal rights to blacks. Nature is also making itself heard in the form of hurricane Donna- a storm that lasted for nine days, causing immense destruction and loss of life.
The old secure framework of morality, authority, and discipline disintegrated as people would seek assuagement in safe havens or sanctuaries for themselves and their loved ones from the transformations around them. According to Sharpton: “Some of these sanctuaries have what it takes to stand the test of time. Other inevitably fail.”
The first few pages of the novel firmly ensconces the reader in the early 1960s world with the Franklin family, Katie, husband Ray and her two sons Robby and Tim who live in Springlake, Florida. Their lives resemble the popular television sitcoms of the era where everything on the surface seems hunky dory until racial tension between blacks and whites begin to intensify. The enduring prejudices and resentment are boiling away just beneath the surface of small-town life.
Ray is employed in the town's popular hardware store, where blacks use the back door to be served and pay for their purchases. According to the store's owner, “they seemed to like it that way since we dealt with them on a more personal level and they wouldn't be embarrassed if they couldn't read or do math.” On the other hand, the federal government was enacting some legislation that forced businesses to permit blacks into public places. However, for some of the inhabitants of Springlake this was asking too much, after all, as the owner of a car dealership rationalizes, “we gave them their own separate restrooms, so what more could they want?” Entrenched racist attitudes are hardened, guns and rifles are easily purchased, and there is a general feeling among many whites that “black people are causing so much trouble all over the country”-all of which is a perfect recipe for disaster in the form of riots which do eventually transpire.
Sharpton employing brutal realism effectively unveils fragments of the lives of the inhabitants of Springlake as he explores their sanctuaries concerning business, nature, school, the church, the gym, and the world and the rest of it. A field that once represented peace, calm and hope is now one of the the staging grounds of the Ku Klux Klan in their spread of hatred. The church is undergoing profound changes and no longer is timeless, eternal and unmoved by history, although it does continue to serve the needy as best it could. The school's gym, which used to be considered inviting and safe is likewise not immune from change.
What really stands out in this well-paced novel is the authenticity of Sharpton's voice as he meticulously draws portraits of the tumultuous world he grew up in. His characters are not wooden cartoon small-town folks without flesh and blood-they are alive and kicking reflecting an era that was undergoing vast change with profound ramifications.
Richard R. Blake, Reader Views
In his book “7 Sanctuaries,” Ben A. Sharpton introduces a series of seven vignettes focused on life in a small Southern town in the 1960s. Each vignette is viewed from a different perspective. However, each story is intertwined into a riveting, emotionally-charged reading experience. For me the book became a challenging self-examination of acquired attitudes, core values, opportunities shunned, goals accomplished, friendships made, and relationships squandered.
Sharpton captures an unrestrained embryonic change taking place in a decade of fear-provoking, puzzling, and electrifying idealism, technological advances, desegregation, and war in Southeast Asia - an era filled with possibilities, of hopefulness, and prospect in the midst of a stormy world of conflict and despair.
Katie Franklin, who sought her sanctuary in family, found herself confronting the legal authorities to lend her support to the Freedom Riders. Katie’s son Rob, who sought sanctuary in education and the school gym, joins the conflict against the injustice, bias and the resultant hatred of racial bigotry. George Roberts sought after sanctuary through business success at a time when government intervention created an atmosphere leading to rioting and destruction. Stephen Phillips found sanctuary in the church and committed himself to saving kids from lives of depravity, drugs, and discrimination. These individuals and others are drawn together in the framework of sanctuary in a southern community of Springlake, Florida.
Ben’s writing creates a sense of the racial tension and resentment portrayed in the novel. I found the message to be a forceful reminder that the changes that took place in the era of the 60s is still in process. I was left with a gripping, lingering sense of realism as I relived those stormy times and became sensitive to a personal need to live more passionately and at a higher level of commitment to impact needed social change today.
Careful character development, a socially important plot, and insightful writing combine to make “7 Sanctuaries” by Ben A. Sharpton a masterpiece of brilliant writing.
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