The Narrative of James Roberts

MY motives for placing this little Narrative before the public, are the following: First, to comply with the earnest request of many of my friends, both white and colored, who have strongly solicited me to publish a narrative of my long and eventful life, believing, as they have said, good to the rising generation and to posterity would result there from. Second. I have for many years greatly desired, nay, it has been my earnest prayer to the Father of spirits, that I might live and have an opportunity afforded me to have my narrative written by a colored person, even if it should not be as well written as many white persons could write it; it has been my desire to get one of my own race to do it, that I might have the great satisfaction of knowing and seeing one of my despised race capable of writing a book, however small. For when I was a boy, to have seen a colored person with ability to read and write, would have been not much short of a miracle; it would have been a very great curiosity, so much so, that hundreds would have gone fifty or a hundred miles to see such an one. But I think my God that I have lived to see those days of miracles pass away, and to see, what I desired from my youth, many of my brethren capable of doing, by the aid of education, what other races can do. I have demonstrative proof before me, in this country, that my race is as susceptible of intellectual culture as any other people; and that they are not only susceptible naturally of high mental improvement, but I rejoice with exceeding joy that hundreds of my race have availed themselves of that susceptibility, and are now prepared by education to discharge the duties connected with any station in civilized life, even those which require the highest grade of education.