Breaking down racial barriers on TV.
Recruiting astronauts for NASA.
Singing with jazz legends.
The late Nichelle Nichols lived an extraordinary life.
"Star Trek" made Gene Roddenberry famous, but he was already an established television
writer before the iconic series aired.
After nearly a decade as a writer, Roddenberry produced and created his own show in 1963,
a military drama called "The Lieutenant."
The show turned out to be Roddenberry's introduction to Nichelle Nichols when she was cast in a
minor role in the episode "To Set It Right."
The story sees the titular Lieutenant confronting the issue of racism in his unit.
"It's just not that easy, Lieutenant.
I don't know the answer."
This was meant to Nichols' first appearance on television, but it wouldn't actually air
until decades later.
The episode was pulled from the schedule over its racial themes, and "The Lieutenant" was
canceled a week later.
The first episode of "Star Trek" aired in 1966 with Nichelle Nichols playing Lieutenant
Nyota Uhura, the communications officer on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.
From a 21st-century perspective, her role may seem unremarkable, but at the time, it
was almost entirely unprecedented.
Nichols was one of the first Black women to be cast in a role other than the stereotype
of a maid or a nanny.
In an interview with Television Academy Foundation, actress Whoopi Goldberg credits Uhura as giving
Black women a place in the future, describing her importance as "earth-shattering."
Lieutenant Uhura wasn't actually the first-ever Black woman in 20th-century science fiction,
but she was certainly one of the most noteworthy.
The 1940 sci-fi monster movie "Son of Ingagi" for example, had an all-black cast, including
Laura Bowman as a mad scientist type.
But "Star Trek" stood out because it was on television, broadcast directly into homes.
Uhura quickly became a fan favorite character, and with the civil rights movement in full
swing, her name was subtly appropriate too.
The name "Uhura" was chosen by Roddenberry and Nichols, based on a Swahili word which
means "freedom."
The character's first name is also from Swahili word meaning "star."
"Ebony" cover star
In 1967, Nichelle Nichols was featured on the cover of Ebony magazine, one of America's
leading showcases of Black culture.
"Star Trek" came out at a time when it was particularly dangerous to be Black, and Nichols'
role on the show was an inspiration for young girls of all skin tones.
The feature in Ebony praised the show, and even joked that it was, quote, "a triumph
of modern-day TV over modern-day NASA."
The article talks about Nichols' bright and bubbly personality and mentions her getting
her start as a singer — but it also makes a few interesting points about how, for its
time, "Star Trek" was quite a progressive show.
Among other things, it notes that the communications officer role had originally been intended
for a man before it was given to Nichols, highlighting the theme of equality that "Star
Trek" has so often commented on.
It's a famous story — Nichelle Nichols was convinced to remain on "Star Trek" by none
other than the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but some of the story's more charming
and impactful details are often left out.
Chief among them was the fact that Dr. King and his family were avid viewers of "Star
Trek."
In fact, it was the only show that King's children were allowed to stay up past their
bedtime to watch.
King was delighted to meet Nichols, reportedly introducing himself with the words, "I am
your best fan, I am your biggest fan!"
"Oh my god, there's Dr. King!
There's Dr. Martin Luther King."
Nichols recounted the remarkable story in an interview with the Television Academy Foundation
in 2019.
Before she met Dr. King, she planned to accept a stage role and had already handed her resignation
letter to Gene Roddenberry, though he hadn't accepted it yet, asking her to take the weekend
to think it over.
That same weekend, Nichols met King.
His enthusiasm for Uhura's importance was what convinced her to stay with "Star Trek,"
realizing that just by appearing on screen, she was doing much more for the civil rights
movement than she'd realized.
Initially though, Nichols' feelings were mixed.
She mentions feeling angry and overwhelmed by the responsibility.
By that Monday, however, she'd made her choice to stay, and she returned to Roddenberry to
retract her resignation, only to find that he'd already torn up her letter.
According to the book "Geek Heroines," Whoopi Goldberg's first reaction to seeing Nichols
on TV was to run and tell her family,
"I just saw a Black woman on television, and she ain't no maid!"
It was "Star Trek" that inspired Goldberg to pursue her long career in acting, eventually
taking a role in "Star Trek: The Next Generation."
In an interview with Makers, Goldberg mentions meeting Nichelle Nichols and having the chance
to tell her about the impact she'd made.
"The first black person I'd ever seen that made it to the future."
In a Television Academy Foundation interview in 2018, Goldberg talked about her need to
get involved with "Star Trek" after hearing that LeVar Burton had been cast, but no one
took her seriously at first.
At the time, it was extremely unusual for a movie actor to take a role on a TV show.
She ended up speaking directly to Gene Roddenberry, explaining why Star Trek was so important
to her, saying that before Lieutenant Uhura, Black people effectively didn't exist in any
visions of the future.
"Star Trek" was a futuristic world of unity and equality, and Whoopi Goldberg wanted to
be a part of that for others.
Roddenberry ended up creating the character Guinan specifically for Goldberg.
In 1987, Dr. Mae Jemison was recruited to be the first African American woman to go
into space.
She was a brilliant student when she was young, going to college when she was just 16 and
earning two degrees.
One of her biggest sources of inspiration was "Star Trek," which drove her to become
a real-life astronaut.
According to the book "Geek Heroines," watching "Star Trek" as a child was what fostered Jemison's
love of space, and seeing Uhura was what made her realize she could pursue her dream.
Jemison would later meet Nichelle Nichols at a "Star Trek" fan convention, telling her,
"You gave me and others permission to be in the room."
NASA's space mission STS-47 took Jemison into orbit in 1992 aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour.
Jemison later appeared in an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" after being invited
to do so by LeVar Burton, becoming the first real astronaut to appear on the show.
In the wake of "Star Trek," Nichelle Nichols became a keen advocate for space travel, devoting
much of her later life to it.
Prominently, she served on the board of directors for the National Space Society, but her most
valuable act was working for NASA.
"This is your NASA."
According to the book "Lady Astronauts, Lady Engineers, and Naked Ladies," it was NASA
that originally reached out to Nichelle Nichols, realizing that there was a distinct lack of
diversity in the astronauts they'd recruited for their burgeoning space program.
This led Nichols to found a consultancy firm, Women in Motion Inc., through which she could
take on government contracts from NASA.
NASA's recruitment materials from the 1970s featured her prominently.
Some of their videos even feature clips from "Star Trek."
Nichols' efforts worked wonders for NASA's diversity.
As Inverse explains, two of the astronauts she recruited were Guion Bluford and Ron McNair,
the two first Black men to go into orbit.
The most famous astronaut that Nichols recruited was Dr. Sally Ride, the first American woman
to become an astronaut.
As Scientific American explains, while Ride didn't reveal it at the time, she was also
lesbian, making her the first known astronaut from the LGBTQ+ community.
In 1976, NASA inaugurated the first space shuttle orbiter, which was named Enterprise.
As Space.com explains, the name was chosen after a campaign by "Star Trek" fans and approved
by President Gerald Ford, who was "partial to the name."
In recognition, Nichelle Nichols attended the naming ceremony, alongside most of the
original "Star Trek" cast.
This wasn't the only time Nichelle Nichols was a guest of NASA in 1976, either.
As the official "Star Trek" website mentions, she was also invited to NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena to watch the Viking 1 space probe land on Mars.
Together with the team of NASA scientists and engineers, Nichols was one of the first
people in the world to see images from the surface of the red planet.
Nichols never flew on a real spacecraft herself, but she got to enjoy the next best thing.
As Space.com reports, Nichols once flew on the airborne SOFIA observatory, a custom-modified
Boeing 747 plane with an infrared telescope built into it.
She noted that SOFIA has "many parallels to the starship Enterprise," calling it "a tool
to study where we want to go in the future."
And while she may no longer be with us on Earth, Nichelle Nichols' name still lives
on in space.
She's one of a select handful of people in the world to have a solar system landmark
named after her, the asteroid 68410 Nichols, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Years before she appeared on television, Nichelle Nichols' first break in acting came in the
form of musical theater.
Nichols was an impressive jazz vocalist, and even spent time in the 1960s on tour with
Duke Ellington's band.
While her career eventually shifted away from musical theater, Nichols never lost her passion
for singing.
Even after she accepted her acting role on "Star Trek," Nichols held on to her love of
song.
Two episodes of the original series, "Charlie X" and "The Conscience of the King," feature
scenes with her singing.
The critically panned "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" features her performing a song and
dance routine to cause a distraction, but while the provocative dancing was entirely
Nichelle Nichols' performance, it wasn't actually her singing voice.
During her life, she released two albums of music.
The first, "Down to Earth," was recorded while "Star Trek" was being made, in 1967.
The album was made together with jazz arranger Gerald Wilson, and a review on AllMusic describes
Nichols as a "formidable" vocalist in songs ranging from upbeat to slow and soulful.
In 1991, Nichelle Nichols returned to the studio to produce a second album, "Out Of
This World."
The AllMusic listing calls it a mixture of jazz pop and spoken word, and with a picture
of Nichols in character as Uhura on the cover, it feels like a tribute to her time on "Star
Trek" — and also to its creator Gene Roddenberry.
It's deeply significant that this album was released in 1991, the year in which Roddenberry
passed away.
The second track on "Out Of This World" is a song called "Gene," which Nichols wrote
for Roddenberry while his health was failing in the early 1990s.
She later sang the song at his funeral.
Following the end of the original run of "Star Trek" on TV, Nichelle Nichols reprised her
role as Uhura in "Star Trek: The Animated Series."
The show was every bit as outlandish, campy, and fun as the live-action original and even
saw Uhura taking command of the Enterprise at one point.
This wouldn't be the last time Nichols ventured into animation.
Matt Groening's shows are well known for their frequent celebrity guests, and Nichelle Nichols
has made cameo appearances as herself in two of them, appearing in an episode of "The Simpsons,"
"Simple Simpson," and in two "Futurama" episodes.
"Eternity with nerds.
It's the Pasadena Star Trek convention all over again!"
One of her lesser-known acting roles came in the form of the character Thoth Khepera
in "Batman: The Animated Series."
In the episode "Avatar," an Ancient Egyptian scroll is stolen from Gotham Museum, so Batman
pursues the thief to a buried temple under the deserts of Egypt.
In the temple, however, they confront a murderous mummified queen, Thoth Khepera, a sorceress
determined to destroy them all.
It's a minor role, but a far cry from Nichelle Nichols' usual acting as a humanitarian character
like Uhura, so it's worth seeking out for fans.