Nichelle Nichols was a singer, actress, dancer and an icon of the black civil rights movement in the United States. Most importantly, she was Lieutenant Nyota Uhura on Star Trek.
To understand what it meant when, in 1966, a black woman sat on television on the bridge of an imaginary spaceship and spoke to equally imaginary aliens through a button in her ear, one has to tell a little anecdote. Nichelle Nichols, who played Lieutenant Nyota Uhura in “Star Trek: Star Trek,” actually had other plans for her career. She sang and danced since she was a little girl and she wanted to be a musical star, on Broadway in New York. In Chicago she sang in a nightclub and toured as a dancer with Duke Ellington. The Enterprise took her along as an interesting résumé point, but not much else. After the first season she wanted out.
But then she met Martin Luther King at an event, who introduced himself as her “biggest fan”. Stop playing Uhura? “You mustn’t. You mustn’t,” he said. The role would see blacks on television for the first time as they were always meant to be seen: strong, smart, educated. Worthy of respect.
Nichelle Nichols stayed. And used the role in the fight for black people’s rights. From 1977 she worked for NASA’s space program, recruiting women and minority representatives to train as astronauts. Real space travel also owes a lot to Nichols.
On the Enterprise, Uhura was fourth in command, seen here with George Takei, Walter Koenig, and James Doohan.
(Photo: Paramount/Everett Collection/Imago)
And then there was the kiss thing. In the episode “Plato’s Stepchildren”, aliens force her and Captain Kirk to exchange intimacy. The scene is considered the first kissing scene between black and white on US television. At least now it was clear: “Star Trek” was a political utopia in the guise of an action series. Nichelle Nichols died on July 30 at the age of 89.