Carolyn M. Dejoie papers

The Carolyn M. Dejoie papers document her career in academia as a faculty member at University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Health and Human Issues Department. The papers consist of documentation compiled and generated in relation to the gender and racial discrimination case of Carolyn DeJoie against the University of Wisconsin. Dejoie filed a "Charge of Discrimination" with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in May 1972. After the failure of the EEOC to conciliate the case, Dr. Dejoie filed a civil suit in the U.S. District Court in 1978.

Additional material within the collection consists of manuscript articles, conference papers, and speeches written by Dr. Dejoie (ca. 1969-1997). Interfiled with the manuscripts are forms for publishing the various articles and conference papers. Also included, are news clippings, programs, and three books from her childhood. Of note is correspondence for the Committee Against Racism (1974-1977). Also included are records for Edward and Ellen Barnes of New Orleans. The papers include birth records, stock certificates, agreements and contracts for property, letters from H.C. Huber and bank notes.

Of interest within the collection is a 31-page transcript of Barnes v. Fletchera case heard in the Civil District Court, Division E, before the Honorable George H. Theard, on March 24, 1915. Principals included Melinda Barnes, J.U. Jacobs, Charles G. Ketchiens, Charles Clark Cobb, Edward Barnes, Albert Guilbault, Daniel J. Murphy, H.W. Robinson (lawyers for the plaintiff and defendant), and M. Clay LeJeune, shorthand reporter. The case involved alleged illegality in the sale of property owned by Mathulda Barnes and purchased by Charles T. Fletcher, both of New Orleans.

Additional materials include a small amount of correspondence, a photograph, a file of writings and collected materials on Dejoie’s visits to Cuba and U.S.-Cuban relations, news clippings, agendas and programs of the National Congress of Black Faculty, a typescript of a 1988 interview with Dejoie, her tenure and promotion file from the University of Wisconsin, and examples of Dejoie’s poetry.

Principle topics include: African American students and faculty on majority-white university campuses, African American women, minorities in prison, and other sociological topics concerning African Americans.