At the age of fifteen, Fred Anderson left home and was sucked into the maelstrom of the U.S. southern civil rights movement. He became active with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and other civil rights organization, working with some of the well-known leaders including John Lewis, Bob Moses, Stokely Carmichael, Fanni Lou Hamer and more. As the movement voiced opposition to the Vietnam War and support for liberation movements in Africa and other Third World countries, including Palestine, the FBI targeted it, while military draft boards systemically and disproportionately inducted social activists and poor Blacks, including Fred Anderson. When he refused to go to war, he chose 'Flight to Canada,' where he became Clifford Gaston, the name he went by until the amnesty granted draft dodgers in 1977.
Eyes Have Seen: From Mississippi to Montreal is a memoir about embracing the racial and tyrannical crosswinds of Hattiesburg and the south of the 1960's and riding the tailwinds of SNCC, civil rights, anti-Vietnam War activism and reimagining the underground railroad to Canada.
Little did he know that the internal and public outcomes of the waning Mississippi Freedom
"The captivating story of Fred Anderson, aka Clifford Gaston, is rooted in the African-American traditions of the American South. These traditions, whether mystical, familial or political, inform a meandering journey that took him from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, to Montreal, Quebec. . . . Eyes have seen is a fascinating read that leaves you awed and inspired."
Aly Ndiaye, aka Webster, Historian and Rapper
"Fred Anderson's Eyes Have Seen is a masterpiece. It is brilliant, erudite storytelling in well-limned, at times, lyrical, cinematic prose. These days, as the USA endeavours to lie about its white supremacist legacy, this memoir is a searing reminder of Jim Crow and its cost: in lives, in property, psychological terror, and even exile, for those who endured or fought it. The latter half of the memoir, which depicts Anderson's life as a Vietnam-War draft resister in Montreal, is an invaluable contribution to history."
H. Nigel Thomas, author of A Different Hurricane and many other novels
