From KCRW, Santa Monica and KCRW.com, this is The Treatment.

Welcome to the treatment. I'm Elvis Mitchell. It was 25 years ago this year that we saw the release who do the right thing.

It was also 25 years ago this year that Huey P. Newton was murdered. And my guest sitting across

him, he's a man who I first met in 2001 seeing him do a Huey P. Newton story on stage at the LA

theater center. He's now starring in his one-man show, Frederick Douglass now with the

bootleg theater here in Los Angeles. Roger, Gunferr-Smith. Roger, first of all,

thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me, Elvis. You know, you've done so many of these

one-man pieces, Juan and John, and Huey P. Newton's story. And just recently, in the last month,

I saw you do Rodney King and now Frederick Douglass now. What is it about these moments of rage that you like to play out on stage?

Because it's really fascinating to see, having seen all of these pieces.

Well, rage, I think, is part of how I grew up.

My youth was defined, I think, by the rage of 1965, Los Angeles riots, which is part of the

Juan and John's story, Juan Bean, Juan Marischal, the Hall of Fame pitcher for the San Francisco

Giants. John Roseboro is John, the great catcher, the late catcher of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Marischal hit Roseboro upside the head with his baseball bat, and I witnessed that on television.

Soon after witnessing Western Avenue going up in fire and smoke, where my family had a business,

and my father and I stood in front of the business to make sure that folks knew that it was a

black-owned business. And I was so traumatized by what Marishaw had done to Roseboro, with his bat, Roseboro being a hero of mine,

that I took one Marshall's baseball card and I tore it up and I burned it and I chanted,

burn, baby, burn, burn, baby burn. That's part of the motivation of my work, but certainly the greater part, I think, of my work is motivated by love.

But, I mean, I'd just sing the Frederick Douglass Now, which I just saw you do over the weekend.

I was struck by the number of times you used the quote from which he's most famous.

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