From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capitol

This is the title page of John Mercer Langston's illustrated autobiography, From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capitol (1894). Langston was Virginia's first African American member of Congress, serving from 1890 to 1891. The motto beneath the title reads, "Self-reliance the secret of success."

Citation: From the Virginia Plantation to the National Capitol; or, The First and Only Negro Representative in Congress from the Old Dominion. E185.97 .L27 1894. Special Collections, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.