David Played a Harp by
David Played a Harp is an autobiography from a bi-racial, self-educated, retired barber, now 96 years old. He, Ralph W. Johnson, was in the midst of the survival struggles of one of nation's best known small college towns, Davidson, NC. His shop, one of the largest between Richmond and Atlanta, was the target of a student picketing which challenged state law exempting personal service shops from the civil rights act. In an effort to save his business his became, as far as he knew, the first integrated shop in the South, leading it to demise. He writes personally of the crises changes of the 20th century in education, race relations, business opportunity. Social and political upheaval are related by a master raconteur, practiced with half century standing by a barber chair, offering a lilt of hope in gut-wrenching times unbelievable today. Johnson deftly lifts the real people of Davidson out of the past, off the pages and the reader travels with them, sometimes laughing, often crying but always with heartstrings tangled in Jim Crow's ugly destructive mesh.
Davidson: A History of the Town from 1835 until 1937 by 
Davidson College: Intimate Facts by
Also available digitally via HathiTrust; follow catalog link to connect
Memories of Davidson College by
Also available digitally through HathiTrust; follow catalog link to access
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Mailing Address: Davidson College - E.H. Little Library, 209 Ridge Road, Box 5000, Davidson, NC 28035
