John Watson became editor of The South End, the daily student newspaper of Wayne State University, in 1968, transforming the paper into a public resource "with the intention of promoting the interests of impoverished, oppressed, exploited, and powerless victims of white, racist monopoly capitalism and imperialism" (first editorial by Watson in Sept. 26, 1968). As member of both the Black Panthers and the Detroit-based Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM), John Watson represented the American black liberation movement at the international anti-imperialist conference organized in December 1968 in Italy.