to be tried by people from their peer group, United Nations plebiscite of blacks in Australia, land, bread, housing, clothing, justice and peace". Watson said that many Indigenous Australians were inspired by the American Black Panther Party. Watson features in an episode of the 2013 documentary TV series [Desperate Measures about the Black Panthers. He protested the Bjelke-Petersen government's treatment of Aboriginal people, and marched against the 1971 Springbok rugby tour, the Vietnam war, and for civil liberties. Deaths in custody (1990s) Through work at the Brisbane Aboriginal Legal Service in the early nineties, Watson was involved in implementing the findings of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. The film Black Man Down is a fictionalised exploration of the commission's findings. Socialist Alliance Watson was the Indigenous rights spokesperson for the Socialist Alliance, and ran as their candidate in the 2004 and 2007 federal election in Queensland. He was a candidate for that party at the 2009 state election for the seat of South Brisbane, running against the ALP state premier Anna Bligh. Watson received 344 votes (1.36%). He represented the Socialist Alliance again as a candidate for the Senate in the 2010 federal election, where he received 3,806 votes (0.12%). Other activities Watson is also a writer and a filmmaker, known for his 1990 novel The Kadaitcha Sung and his 1995 film Black Man Down. In December 2009, Watson was appointed a deputy director at the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit at the University of Queensland and taught two courses in Black Australian Literature. In October 2009, Watson was one of several people who criticised the supermarket chain Coles for naming its house brand line of biscuits "Creole Creams". Coles subsequently decided to repackage and rename the product. Watson was a member of the working party involved in the creation of the First Nations Australia Writers Network (FNAWN) in 2012. Recognition and awards Watson won the National Indigenous Writer of the Year Award in 1991 for his 1990 novel The Kadaitcha Sung. It was also shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award. His essay, Blood on the Boundary, shortlisted for the 2017 Horne Prize, was highly commended by the judges who commented that it "stands out for its vigour, for its muscularity and recklessness of style. It is also very funny, in its own weird way". Death and legacy Watson died at a hospital in