Nichelle Nichols was so much more than just the first black woman featured in a major television series playing Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek.
This week she passed away in New Mexico at 89 years old and she’s an inspiration to us all.
The role she played on Star Trek was groundbreaking. Her character was Lieutenant Nyota Uhura and her name came from the Swahili word “uhuru” for “freedom.”
She continued to make headlines when she became part of the first interracial kiss on TV when her character shared a kiss with Captain James Kirk (William Shatner).
Nichols grew up in a Chicago suburb where her father was the mayor and she starred in all kinds of plays and musical theatre when she was growing up.
When she became a star on the show, she started to get other acting offers. She went to Gene Roddenberry who created Star Trek and announced that she was going to leave the show. He told her to give it the weekend and to think about her role in the show.
During her weekend thinking about leaving her character of Uhura behind, she attended an NAACP fundraiser in Beverly Hills and was able to meet someone who called himself her number one fan, Martin Luther King, Jr.
In an interview Nichols gave to NPR in 2011, she remembered, “He complimented me on the manner in which I’d created the character. I thanked him, and I think I said something like, ‘Dr. King, I wish I could be out there marching with you.’ He said, ‘no, no, no. No, you don’t understand. We don’t need you … to march. You are marching. You are reflecting what we are fighting for.’ So, I said to him, ‘thank you so much. And I’m going to miss my co-stars.’ His face got very, very serious, and he said, ‘what are you talking about?’ And I said, ‘well, I told Gene just yesterday that I’m going to leave the show after the first year because I’ve been offered… And he stopped me and said: ‘You cannot do that.’ I was stunned. He said, ‘don’t you understand what this man has achieved? For the first time, we are being seen the world over as we should be seen. He says, do you understand that this is the only show that my wife Coretta and I will allow our little children to stay up and watch.’ I was speechless.”
And so, Nichols decided to continue on with the series which lasted till 1969. She continued to be a part of the franchise, reprising her role in six of the films.
But not only did she create a voice for black women on television, she had her own Science Foundation, Women in Motion that helped to recruit the astronauts Guion Bluford and Sally Ride.
