Josephine Silone Yates (1852 or November 15, 1859 – 1912) was one of the first black teachers hired at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri. President Inman Edward Page considered it essential to replace the previously white faculty with black teachers, as role models for the school's African American students. The teachers lived on campus in the dormitories with the students. Josephine taught chemistry, elocution, and English literature. Upon her promotion to head of the natural science department, she became the first black woman to head a college science department and the first black woman to hold a full professorship at any U.S. college or university.

Yates was also significant in the African American women's club movement. She was a correspondent for the Woman's Era (the first monthly magazine published by black women in the United States) and wrote for other magazines as well. Yates was instrumental in establishing women’s clubs for African American women: she was the first president of the Women's League of Kansas City (1893) and the second president of the National Association of Colored Women (1900–1904).