Nichelle Nichols, who became known as Lieutenant Uhura in the science fiction series “Star Trek” and shook stereotypes there, is dead. The actress died last Saturday in New Mexico, as her son announced.
Beginning in 1966, Nichols played a doubly unusual role in the NBC primetime series Star Trek. Not only was she, as Lieutenant Uhura, a woman among the most important officers of a spaceship. As a black woman, she questioned the clichés that were common at the time all the more.
The creator of the Stark Trek universe, Gene Roddenberry, wrote the role in contrast to the then usual cast of black actresses as, for example, housemaids. NBC bosses are said to have asked Roddenberry to rewrite the role – which he refused.
In November 1968, during the final season of Enterprise’s first adventures, she made history again. Her character, Uhura, kissed Captain James T. Kirk, played by William Shatner. It was the first kiss between a black woman and a white man on a major US network. The topic was so sensitive at the time that the blessing of the board of directors of the station had to be obtained before it could be broadcast.