It’s one of the most radical and prophetic speeches in American history. And nobody knows about it

CNN
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In mid-19th-century America, when public speaking was a form of mass entertainment, Frederick Douglass was a rock star.

Standing-room-only crowds greeted him in the US and in Europe. People wept as he recounted the horrors of slavery or erupted in laughter as he mimicked his former slave master. White spectators openly gushed about Douglass’ “muscular, yet lithe and graceful” 6-foot, 200-pound frame, his “full and rich” baritone, and compared him to an “African prince.”

When people talk today about Douglass’ speaking prowess, they often cite his defiant “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” address. But he gave another speech that deserves wider recognition because Douglass spoke with uncanny precision about the kind of debates we’re having now about race, immigration, and what makes America exceptional.

The speech is called “Composite Nation” and in it Douglass tackles a question that lurks behind many of the current political debates in the US: Is the country better off having a multitude of races, ethnic groups and religious beliefs? Or would it, and other nations, fare better with a homogenous population where most people look alike and share the same religious beliefs?

Douglass’ answer has inspired and challenged historians for over a century. The historian Jill Lepore called it “one of the most important and least-read speeches in American political history.” And the historian Andrew Roth said Douglass’ address is “one of the earliest and still most eloquent” tributes to the beauty of America’s ever-expanding definition of the “We” in “We the people.”

“The Composite Nation speech is a brilliant vision of America’s evolving “tapestry” in all its colors, shades, and ethnicities,” Roth, a scholar-in residence at the Jefferson Educational Society, wrote.

Douglass’ bold vision of America takes on fresh relevance today as PBS premieres a new documentary about his life by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Stanley Nelson. Entitled “Becoming Frederick Douglass,” the film looks at how a man born into slavery became one of the nation’s most influential leaders. Douglass was the most photographed American of the 19th century (160 photographs of him survive, compared to 130 of Abraham…