Alister Hughes, Journalist of Grenada

Juris Doctor, 1990

This transcription is the presentation to Alister Hughes in November,
1990, of the degree of Doctor of Laws of the University of the West
Indies, for Alister’s history of public service in general specifically for
his courageous journalistic coverage of the birth of the Grenadian
nation from 1969 to the time of this presentation.

This award was arranged only after Alister had declined a knighthood
in 1988. About this honor from the Universityof the West Indies, he
said: "I do not agree with taking Colonial Honours as they scramble
our brains. I am very happy to take any honours given me by my
own people.
CHANCELLOR, there are times, in this Our Caribbean, when to write or
speak the truth in public is a dangerous thing; but there are men
among us whose business is the truth and who, rather than flee the
danger, pursue and proclaim their truth not disguised in learned
jargon, but uttered in the common coinage of ordinary language so
that all can understand. It is such a man that we honour tonight.

Alister Earl Hewitson Hughes, born in St. Georges, Grenada, in 1919,

has become, in the 198Os, one of the best known of Caribbean
journalists, both within the region and beyond. He has been at times
the sole authoritative voice to which the world has turned for news of
events in Grenada. The road to this achievement, however, was
anything but conventional. Upon leaving the Grenada Boys Secondary
School, to which he had won a scholarship in 1931, Alister Hughes did
not have in mind the journalistic career for which he is now justly
celebrated; rather he wanted to get on with the exciting business of life
and making a living. His first job, in 1937, as office clerk in a
commercial house in St. Georges, was the beginning of a career in
commerce that lasted until the early seventies. During the war, hoping
to be even more extravagantly rewarded than the five shillings a week
he was receiving in Grenada, he sought his fortune in Trinidad, where
he worked on the wharves as a Dock Labour Expeditor.

Returning to Grenada after the war, he managed a bakery briefly

before becoming a partner in the family firm, “A. Norris Hughes and
Sons,” the business of which included a commission agency, dry goods
store, auctioneering, real estate, travel agency, the sale of insurance
and the sales and servicing of sewing machines. It is clear that this
variety of interests and responsibilities was appropriate to a man with
considerable resources of mental energy, curiosity and creativity. He
became manager of the family business in 1969, after brief managerial
stints in two local manufacturing concerns.

Alister Hughes’ skills in the arts of communication were being honed

by his numerous activities in so many different spheres of life In
Grenada. Apart from his experiences in business, which came to
include serving as Secretary, and then President, of the Grenada
Chamber of Commerce and Director of the Caribbean Association of
Industry and Commerce, he served as an elected member of the St.
Georges District Board (1957-60) before being elected to the St.
Georges City Council, where he served from 1960-63, including a term
as Deputy Mayor in 1962. During the ten years from 1957 to 1967 he
was general secretary of the Grenada National Party. There can be few
journalists who have had as thorough a knowledge, through personal
experience of the spheres of life on which they are called to report.
Even the technical side of journalism is represented in his vast
experience as Amateur Radio Operator VP2-GE. Hughes was
instrumental in providing communications out of St. Lucia after
Castries was destroyed by fire in 1948. Again in 1951 he helped
provide radio communications within Grenada during a period of civil
unrest and rioting. He has the newsman’s instinct to be in the right
place when thing are happening, but this is perhaps because he has
lived, not the fugitive and cloistered life on the margins that others
choose, but rather a life amidst the heat and dust of social and political
upheaval.

Such a life has as we have said, its dangers, especially when fuelled by
Grenada’s peculiarly volatile politics of recent time. Alister Hughes was
beaten up by the political thugs of one regime in the seventies and
persecuted, arrested, and imprisoned by the army of another in the
eighties. The pursuit of truth and the vocation to inform the world
about it has always attracted the sinister attentions of those in power
who would prefer that the world were not informed of their activities --
regardless of the specific political ideology that has spawned their
particular lust for power.

At a time when individuals were not permitted to own more than four
percent of a publication, Hughes got together with twenty-five other
shareholders to create the newspaper, The Grenada Voice, of which
only one issue was allowed to see the light of day; the second issue,
along with the modest production equipment, was seized; Hughes lost
his car for ten months, his telephone for eleven months, and his house
was under constant surveillance. Later he was arrested and detained in
prison; he has never been told the reason for this. But all of these
things are part of the reason he is here tonight. But in persecuting the
reporter, those responsible ensured that he became part of the news;
the messenger, as so often happens, became the message. Alister
Hughes was the news that the reporters from the Miami Herald and the
London Times went looking for during the American Invasion. Although
they were too late to release him from prison – for once the guards had
fled it was clear that the prisoner would not scruple to release himself
-- Hughes' freedom was trumpeted to the media of the world. This is
because of his unflagging dedication to the objective reporting of the
truth; truth is always the greatest news.

Alister Hughes, who started his journalist career in earnest in 1969 as

author of a syndicated column with subscribers in the Caribbean, North
America and London, is today Correspondent for Associated Press and
the Caribbean News agency, a stringer for ABC News Radio, and Time
Incorporated, and Founder, Editor and Publisher of The Grenada
Newsletter. Over the years since 1970 he has reported for various wire
services, for 610 Radio, Trinidad, Radio Antilles, Montserrat, Radio St.
Lucia, and CBC Radio, Barbados. His work continues -- he happened to
be on the spot to cover the coup in Trinidad earlier this year -- his work
continues while that of those who had tried to stop it has ceased. We
salute the integrity and courage of the man; He has not allowed
himself to be intimidated or deterred from what he has perceived to be
his duty. In fact it is reliably reported that the only situation from which
he ever retreated without making a stand was when a raccoon he had
inadvertently cornered made a run at him in a suburban backyard in
Toronto, where he was visiting his son.

Alister Hughes has continued to serve his community in many spheres

other than journalism: he has been a foundation member, and then
Secretary, of the Grenada National Trust; he has served, in identical
capacities, the Caribbean Conservation Association; he has served on
the executive of the Grenada Press Association, and as Executive
Secretary of the Caribbean Press Council, He is currently president of
the Caribbean Institute for the Promotion of Human Rights. Among his
hobbies is the collecting of Grenadian antiquities, including an antique
car which was the first taxi on the island,

Of all the many things Alister Hughes has done over the years, he will
tell you that the best was his marriage in 1941 to Cynthia Copland,
who has been at his side in all of his endeavors until her death last
year. She was his partner in The Grenada Newsletter and in 1984 they
jointly received the Maria Moors Cabot Prize from Colombia University
for "distinguished journalistic service." I know that his only
disappointment about tonight’s proceedings is that Cynthia is not here
with him to join in this celebration of a life and career to which she
made an immeasurable and unselfish contribution.

CHANCELLOR, in Alister Hughes we see a man who stuck to his job and
did it well, in times of danger and persecution, not for reasons of
wealth nor power nor honour, but out of a simple love for his homeland
and people and a perception of the dignity of man that did not permit
him to bend and submit to the questionable requirements of political
expediency. I present Alister Earl Hewitson Hughes for the conferment
of the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa.

November 17, 1990.