Vernie Merze Tate (February 6, 1905 – June 27, 1996) was a professor, scholar and expert on United States diplomacy.
She was the first African-American graduate of Western Michigan Teachers College, first African-American woman to attend the University of Oxford, first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D.
in government and international relations from Harvard University (then Radcliffe College), as well as one of the first two female members to join the Department of History at Howard University.