Best known for playing Lieutenant Uhura, the communications officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise on the original 60’s television series, Star Trek, former dancer and bodacious model Nichelle Nichols is one of the first African-American women to be cast in a role other than stereotyped black maid or nanny. Nichols recalls that some of her fans in the South confessed that they were not allowed to watch Star Trek during that time because the show was integrated. She also performed the first inter-racial kiss on national television, which is one of many behind the scene stories of the show.
One of the most notable, but rarely talked about behind-the-scenes stories is how Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. convinced her to stay on the show despite her desire to leave after only one season.
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“I walked in to the interview with this magnificent document on Africa by [Robert] Ruark called Uhuru, which is Swahili for Freedom,” explains Nichols. “Gene Roddenberry, the show’s creator, said he really liked the name of that book and wanted to use the title as a first name. I said, why don’t you do an alliteration of the name Uhuru and soften the N and make it Uhura? He said you are Uhura and that belongs to you.”
Nichelle Nichols: On A Journey To Greater Than Herself was originally published on blackdoctor.org
