Tim Hector

Leonard 'Tim' Hector was born on 24 November 1942 on Lower Newgate Street in St John's, Antigua, and distinguished himself early as an exceptional student before winning a scholarship to study in Canada, where he would eventually break off his postgraduate studies to return home.

A committed disciple of the Trinidadian historian and Pan-Africanist C.L.R. James, Hector returned to Antigua believing his contribution was most urgently needed there, and in 1968 co-founded the Antigua Caribbean Liberation Movement, a radical socialist and Pan-African political party.

That same year, Hector began editing the newspaper Outlet, which became the most widely read publication on the island at the height of its popularity, known for its fearless investigative journalism exposing government corruption and his influential regular column 'Fan the Flame'.

Hector's investigative reporting uncovered the Space Research Corporation scandal, exposing arms shipments to apartheid South Africa, and documented weapons transshipment through Antigua to Colombia's Medellín drug cartel, work that led to his newspaper's offices being targeted by arsonists and Hector himself repeatedly arrested.

Beyond journalism, Hector was a respected cricket administrator, literary and music critic, and educator, and he successfully challenged Antigua's government in a landmark constitutional case before the Privy Council; he died in 2002, widely mourned as, in the words of one admirer, the nation's 'intellectual conscience'.