Long Island-born Josephine A. Silone Yates moved to Rhode Island to live with an aunt, where she became the only African-American student in her Newport, R.I., high school, and the first Black to graduate from the school. She eventually moved to Missouri and became one of the most respected teachers in that state, becoming the first Black woman to become chair of a college science department (she had been trained in chemistry) and possibly the first to be named a full professor at any institution of higher learning in the country.