Fred Anderson was born (1947) in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He left home at an early age to join the Civil Rights Movement, becoming a field secretary for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), organizing in the Mississippi delta, Alabama, and Southwest Georgia. He refused to be drafted into the Vietnam War and fled to Montreal (Quebec) Canada in November 1966. He attended Sir George Williams University and was awarded the 1973 Board of Governors Medal for Creative expression in Literary arts. He lives in Montreal.