In memoriam: Nichelle Nichols

(Nichols in 2012. Photo by Angela George under Creative Commons licence)

Actress, singer, and dancer Nichelle Nichols died over the weekend at the age of 89. She had done modelling work and musical theatre when she was cast as Lieutenant Uhura in the original series of Star Trek. The show’s futuristic setting allowed her to move beyond entrenched racial cliches in TV. Her on-screen kiss with William Shatner was a watershed in the breakdown of the colour bar on U.S. network television.

Early in the series Nichols was tempted to return to the stage on Broadway, but a conversation with Martin Luther King Jr. persuaded her to remain in the Uhura role. During the 1970s and 1980s, after the series ended, she worked with NASA as a recruiter to help diversify its largely white and male personnel. An asteroid discovered in 2001 was named 68410 Nichols in her honour.

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