Grace Nichols (1933- ), better known as Nichelle Nichols, is an American actress famous for playing Lieutenant Uhura on “Star Trek”, both on television, from 1966 to 1969, and in the first six films, from 1979 to 1991. Since 2009, Uhura has been played by Zoe Saldana.
“And Uhura, whose name means freedom. She walks in beauty, like the night.”
– Ambassador Kollos, 2268 (“Is There in Truth No Beauty?”)
Nichols was going to quit “Star Trek” after the first year: she was little more than “a glorified telephone operator in space,” as she put it.
But then, at a civil rights protest, she ran into a Black fan who persuaded her not to quit:
“Don’t you know you have the first non-stereotypical role in television? … For the first time the world will see us as we should be seen – people of quality in the future. You created a role with dignity and beauty and grace and intelligence. You’re not just a role model for our children, but for people who don’t look like us to see us for the first time as equals, as intelligent people – as we should be.”
That eloquent fan was Martin Luther King, Jr.
Nichelle Nichols is credited with another first: the first interracial kiss on US television, or at least the first one between a Black woman and a White man. That was in 1968 on the “Star Trek” episode “Plato’s Stepchildren” where she kisses Captain Kirk (William Shatner). Even though it was not a romantic kiss – it was done under alien mind control! – it was blocked by some television stations in the South and in England.
It was hardly her own first interracial kiss: in the early 1960s she had an affair with a married White man: Gene Roddenberry, the very man who would later create “Star Trek”!
She grew up in Robbins, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, where her father had been mayor. In the 1940s, she became one of the first Black girls (if not the first) to get into the Chicago Ballet Academy. She also studied Afro-Cuban dance. That led to her travelling with Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton as a singer and dancer.
She was briefly on Broadway before moving to Hollywood. She appeared as a dancer in “Porgy and Bess” (1959), starring Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge, but her big break came with “Star Trek”.
In the 1970s and 1980s she became a NASA recruiter, getting women and people of colour interested in becoming astronauts. She is the one who signed up Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, and Guion Bluford, the first Black American. She also inspired Mae Jemison, the first Black American woman in space.
In 1974 Nichols appeared in a blaxpoitation film with Isaac Hayes, “Truck Turner”, where she plays the evil and sexy Dorinda.
She is now 82 but still appears at Star Trek and comic book conventions!
Some actors feel overshadowed by their Star Trek characters. Not Nichols, who is:
“proud of who [Uhura] was (or will be) and what she represented, not only in her time but in ours.”
– Abagond, 2016.
See also:
- Welcome to Black Women’s History Month 2016!
- Star Trek
- Annie Easley – worked for NASA
- Dorothy Dandridge
- Zoe Saldana
- Star Trek: The Doomsday Machine – my only Star Trek post.
- stereotype
- “representation matters”
- The best Black women on television ever
- Other early Black television actors
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I’m a total, hard core Star Trek fan, and Unura was one of the foremost influences of my childhood. I wanted to be her.
She was beautiful, graceful, assertive, suffered no fools, but had a gentle sense of humor, and a lovely singing voice. She wasn’t anybody’s maid. Uhura was an officer and a diplomat, in her right. She also had skills. How many times did we see her fixing her own communications console?
Yes! Representation matters!
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Reblogged this on Geeking Out about It.
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@lkeke35
Well said.
And she still looks good!
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Those white dudes on the Starship Enterprise knew Uhura was a hottie but it was the 60’s and 70’s and they had to keep it kosher. But Uhura and Captain Kirk did kiss. I wonder what the viewers reacted to that then? Ms. Nichols is 77 close to 80 and she is recovering from a stroke, but she is still a beautiful woman.
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Typo: I wonder how the viewers reacted to this kiss back then?
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@Ikeke: Yes to all that
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She’s 82 years old i stand corrected.
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i seen her at a trek convention in LA, a ways back, she sang some opera, and seemed quite intelligent
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eh that all could be like just kirk bagging every female even aliens
was it after loving?
it must have been rough for black and white couples back then with the riots and hard feelings jesus and vietnam
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http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Plato's_Stepchildren_(episode)
ah man it has slavery and they whip her in the show wow i dont remember all that it has a synopsis there, it was after loving, orig. air date was 68 i beleive
and the abraham lincoln episode was real degrading too to her character and in general not a real positive vibe for the character?
“Air date: November 22, 1968”
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sorry one of those days
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Some Abagond may want to look at this Son of Malcolm X site, operated by an Indian guy….
http://sonsofmalcolm.blogspot.com/
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Reblogged this on The Militant Negro™.
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Kiwi,
I am quite sure the reaction was quite mixed, with people in the generation before Shatner and Nichols disgusted by it, especially in the South. If it were not so, why would the broadcast have been banned in certain parts of the country.
For people in their generation or younger, it came within one year after Loving v. Virginia. It would represent a new age of tolerance and enlightenment, however short-lived.
How would the public react to a male same sex kiss on prime time TV today? The reaction would be mixed.
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In the 1960s, actress Nichelle Nichols inspired Black people in general and Black women in particular. To Americans over age 60, Nichols will always be known as “Uhura.” Interestingly, she is the mother of actor Kyle Johnson who played teenager Newt Winger (lead actor) in Gordon Park’s ‘The Learning Tree’ (1969).
Kyle Johnson (Nichelle Nichols’s son)
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Of course, she had a career even before Star Trek. But what was odd about the casting of the Lieutenant Uhura character is something that was seldom seen at the time… A Black woman who could literally steel the scene from the White women in the show. Nichelle looked so fierce in her prime, that you almost could not look away from her in a scene. She looked more fit, more toned, and more “together” than most of White women onstage. And to boot she was written to be intelligent and equally cultured.
That’s no “Mammy” image.
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@King: She was fit and toned in her costume as one of the Starship Enterprise and yes she did steal the scenes she held her own very well and I was amazed she was not a subservient mammy.
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WHEW. I saw her name and had a terrible moment where I feared the worst. I was SO GLAD to see that little hyphen ( 1933- ) wasn’t closed! 😀
WONDERFUL write-up, I wandered over from a reblog from Ikeke!
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@King
Those abs! That posture!
Thanks for posting this picture.
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I love this post. I have to admit when I first saw the title, I was afraid that it would be bad news. I know that she had a recent health scare, but am glad to know that she is still with us. A wonderful woman in all respects.
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@ Mary & Afrofem,.. and that was really before “abs” on women where all the rage or expected. I mean, look at those arms, look at those abs! Of course it helps that she was a dancer in her career before Star Trek.
Fierce!
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Bravo, Ms Nichelle Nichols!
Ms Nicholls actually paved the way for Diahann Carroll, another stellar actress starring in her own prime-time hit TV show, Julia… AND also Denise Nicholas in Room 222, another prime-time hit show.
These three Black Queens, all possessing great beauty, grace and dignity together smoothed the way for the current generation of Black actresses.
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@Fan
So true!
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Magnificent woman, both physically and in relation to her acting career.
Curious as to why the interracial kiss was not shown in the UK. Prior to this they had shown interracial kisses before in 1964 in Emergency Ward 10 between a white male and black female. Even before that in 1962 there was another kiss between a black man and a white woman in the ITV play of the week ‘You in your small corner’
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I’ve always loved her…
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#BlackWomenDoItBetter
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Her role was seen by many as groundbreaking at the time
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As a kid we’d watch Robotech after school. The (Black) Claudia Grant character was engaged to the (white) Roy Fokker character. No mention of race was ever mentioned. I wonder if the Japanese anime creators were influenced by Star Trek in their story telling.
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I think the writers of akira might have seen a couple star trek episodes.
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I once read somewhere that Lt. Uhura was fifth in the chain of command on the Starship Enterprise, behind the Captain, the Science Officer (Spock), the Navigator (Sulu), and the ship’s Engineer (Scotty), but I don’t remember any episode in which she was called upon to act as Captain. Can anyone else remember if she was?
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@Kiwi
I suspect the reason for the discrepancy in the responses has to do with the same reason the Star Trek episode is so often mistakenly credited as the first televised interracial kiss. It was simply way more high profile and reached far more viewers, and thus garnered more attention. Preceding televised interracial kisses probably didn’t catch the same amount of attention or controversy.
Yes, good point.
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What a beautiful sentiment from MLK. He was a fan. How cool is that?
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“..I don’t remember any episode in which she was called upon to act as Captain. Can anyone else remember if she was?”
Pam,
I don’t recall if she ever ascended to the rank of acting captain, but there’s a rumor flying around on the web that Angela Bassett might actually play a Star Fleet captain in a new upcoming Star Trek series.
https://www.google.com/search?q=angela+bassett+star+trek&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
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@ Fan – I like Angela. Maybe some will remember her more than they do Madge Sinclair’s role as captain.
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@Fan:
Thanks for that info about Angela Bassett. As for Lt. Uhura, I’m not at all surprised that she never sat in the Captain’s chair in any episode. It was daring enough at that time to even have a black female character in a science fiction television show. I also once read that the show was cancelled because some portions of the American audience (probably the same ones that have been acting up for the last eight years, or their parents), specifically objected to Lt. Uhura. They had less of a problem with every other race, ethnicity, and ALIENS from other planets, which shows just how severe their obsessive racism really is.
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Which Uhura do you like better?
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I just saw the scene in “A Patch of Blue” (1965) where Elizabeth Hartman kisses Sidney Poitier.
So, I guess we did have earlier interracial kisses, but this one was
– not on TV, but in the movies
– between a black man and a white woman.
I read that these scenes were edited out when screened in the South.
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I saw that way back on this thread, people were wondering if Lt. Uhura had ever been acting captain of the Enterprise during the show.
According to the Wiki article on Nichelle Nichols, her character did once take command on the animated series (which Nichols voiced). But it also says: “Nichols noted in her autobiography her frustration that this never happened on the original series.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nichelle_Nichols
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