Merze Tate: Her Legacy Continues Sonya Bernard-Hollins (left) poses with Lynn Zhang, chair of the WMU Board of Trustees; Jennifer Bott, Provost of WMU; and Deveta Gardner, associate dean of the Merze Tate College after the board vote to name a college in honor of Dr. Vernie Merze Tate. WMU Honors Dr. Merze Tate. The Merze Tate Explorers pose after the dedication ceremony in honor of Dr. Vernie Merze Tate. Photo by Sean Hollins – Copyright By Sonya Bernard-Hollins, Founder – Merze Tate Explorers What happens when a reporter discovers a hidden treasure? In my case, what happened when an archivist brought out three document boxes of items left after the death of Merze Tate, forever changed my life. A series I planned to writer for the Kalamazoo Gazette to highlight the first African Americans of Western Michigan University turned into a movement. Nearly 20 years later, I founded the Merze Tate Travel Club, Western Michigan University has named a college in honor of Dr. Tate, and books and articles are being written by university scholars around the world, all of us on a quest to get Dr. Vernie Merze Tate into the history books in our own way. More than two dozen Merze Tate Explorers and their families took part as honored guests at WMU’s dedication of the Merze Tate College on October 8, 2021 in the Bernhard Center. I was humbled with the opportunity to share of Tate’s legacy and provide a platform for distant relatives of Tate to be recognized and share their own personal stories. The event was a historic moment. The standing-room-only crowd hung on every word about the woman with the name that had become synonymous with the Explorers. Many said that, had it not been for the attention this reporter brought to Tate’s legacy, the naming of the college would not have happened. I would like to think it was all me. But, as God sets things into motion even before we are born, I can’t take the credit. What I can do, is continue to share of her life and how it has inspired hundreds of girls to live a life without limits! ABOUT MERZE TATE Merze Tate poses at the Taj Mahal during her time as a Fulbright Scholar in India (1950). Photo from the Merze Tate Archives, Zhang Archives, WMU Dr. Vernie Merze Tate was born on February 6, 1905 in Blanchard, Mich. As the grandchild of the first Negro settlers in Mecosta County, Mich., she lived a country life, however longed to see the world outside the pine trees and dirt roads which surrounded her. During her three-mile walks to school she recited presidential addresses and memorized world landmarks, vowing to one day see them all. Blanchard High School graduated Tate and about a dozen other students in 1920. However, the school ended at 10th grade and young Merze wanted to attend college to become a teacher. She needed two more years of high school to qualify for entrance into a four-year institution. So, with the support of her mother and relatives who lived in Battle Creek, Michigan, she packed up and worked as a domestic in the home of a single woman. Little did Merze know that she would never return to live in Blanchard. After graduating from Battle Creek Central High School, Dr. Tate went on to attend Western State Teachers College (now Western Michigan University). In 1927 she graduated with the school’s highest academic record at that time—63 A’s and 3 B’s. In addition, she completed a four-year bachelor’s degree in three years! The young scholar was held in high esteem on campus, however, despite her achivements, she could not teach secondary education in Michigan due to Jim Crow segregation. With the assistance of the college’s administration; particularly the school’s President Dwight Waldo, she secured a job at Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis, Ind. The school, founded by the city’s Ku Klux Klan, was an effort to segregate races. Tate, along with others, was hired by the school’s African American principal with the intent to teaching Colored students to excel beyond the founders’ intentions. As African Americans fought through Jim Crow laws stifled the life of many, Tate decided to explore the world and use her talents and gifts on a broader scale. She went on to study in Geneva, Switzerland, earned a master’s degree from Columbia University, a Ph.D. from Oxford University (the first African American to do so), and later, earned a Ph.D. from Harvard’s women’s college, Radcliff. Her educational background included being professor and dean for Barber-Scotia College, Bennett College, Morgan State College, and Howard University where she worked from 1942-1977. Her expertise in international politics led to various awards for her writings on the history of such places as Hawaii, New Zealand, and South Africa. She traveled the world, twice, and was an advisor and cinemetographer for the Department of State. Her life included owning patents, being a national Bridge champion, and much more. Through it all, she never married or had children. She died in 1996 at the age of 91. However, her legacy lives on. She has left millions to institutes of higher learning who looked beyond her race and gender to provide her with a stellar education. Western Michigan University, Radcliffe College-Harvard University, and Howard University received everything from million-dollar contributions, to archival documents upon her death. The dedication of the Merze Tate College at WMU is just one example of how her life of adventure and scholarship lives on. In addition, Howard University holds an annual international lecture endowed by Dr. Tate, and WMU grants a full scholarship each year to a student with academic promise and economic challenges. This reporter has taken youth around the world in the name of Dr. Tate, providing them with a role model who lived a life without limits. All of this came after seeing one image of Merze Tate as a teacher at Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis, Indiana. Tate’s boldness led 40 students by train from Indianapolis to Washington D.C. in 1932. If she could do it, I could do it! Merze Tate’s first job as a history teacher at Crispus Attucks led her to form a Travel Club at the school.
