Today is a day for celebrating the legacy of Martin Luther King and so I thought I’d share one of my favorite stories about his impact on our society. It’s being reported a lot today but is well worth hearing.
Star Trek was on the air in the late 1960s and one of the performers on the show was Nichelle Nichols AKA Lt. Uhura. Nichols liked the part well enough but was planning to leave at the end of the 1st season. She felt that the character had limited potential (hailing frequencies open sir) and wanted to return to her true love, musical theater.
It was an understandable viewpoint for her to have. Aside from the probably racial biases against a strong African American woman on TV at the time there was the fact that ensemble shows were not very common. You would have one central character, a couple of sidekicks and the rest of the cast was, to some degree, window dressing.
So Nichols told producer/creator Gene Roddenberry that she wanted to leave. He urged her to reconsider and asked if she would at least take the weekend to think about it. She agreed but as she later said it was largely to humor her boss.
That weekend she went to a NAACP fundraiser and was talking to a friend when she was told someone wanted to meet her. She turned, expecting to see some young Trek fan, but instead looked into the face of Dr. King himself.
Slightly stunned she waited for him to speak and he told her how much he enjoyed the show, telling her it was the one program that he and his wife let the kids stay up late to watch. Indeed, given his busy schedule, it was the one hour a week his family was sure to be together.
She thanked King and told him that she was leaving to pursue other opportunities.
As she later related, he looked into her eyes and said in his soft yet commanding tone: You cannot!
He explained to her that she was one of the first blacks and one of the first black women to have a role on TV that was not a maid or servant. She was a role model to millions of young boys and girls, showing them that they *could* be all they wanted to.
Of course she could not refuse such a ‘command’ and remained with the show.
As it turns out King was quite correct. The first black woman in space, Mae Jemison has cited her as the inspiration for her going into the space program. Actress Whoopi Goldberg (who later appeared on Star Trek The Next Generation) has said that Uhura inspired her. Nichols has said she has lost count of the number of doctors, scientists, etc who tell her they are where they are because of her role.
And who said TV is a wasteland….