By Ashley Benkarski
NASHVILLE, TN — Nichelle Nichols, the legendary Communications Officer Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, was born Dec. 28, 1932 in Robbins, Illinois. She passed away July 30, 2022.
Nichols would have been 91 this year.
Nichols led a full life, pursuing her passions of singing, dancing, and acting, all the while inspiring countless others to live boldly and authentically.
A talented dancer and songstress, she began her entertainment career singing with Duke Ellington and his band.
But it was her breakout role as Lt. Uhura on Star Trek: The Original Series that quite literally changed the world.
Back in the 1960s, there were very little leading roles held by nonwhite, women actors. As Lt. Uhura, Nichols was one of the first Black women to hold such a role on American television. And not only was hers a leading role, it was one that saw her as fourth in command of the U.S.S. Enterprise.
She joined a racially and culturally diverse cast on a show that dared to imagine a future where there were no borders to science and space travel. Exploration and excellence were available to anyone who desired them.
She was even one-half of one of the first on-screen interracial kisses with Captain James T. Kirk, played by William Shatner.
Nichols once considered leaving the show for a Broadway role she wanted to take, but as fate would have it, she changed her mind, and we are all the better for it.
It’s a story she loved to tell: That showrunner Gene Roddenberry had asked her to take a little more time to think on her decision to leave Star Trek. Soon after at a fundraiser for the NAACP she was introduced to Martin Luther King, Jr., who urged her to stay, citing the importance of her role for the cause of civil rights. Viewers who had been pushed to the side in so many of the stories being told at the time could now see themselves operating starships.
Because of Nichols, NASA began receiving a flurry of applications from women and people of color. She took part in the agency’s recruitment efforts alongside some of her castmates, and it’s because of her there’s an ever-growing constellation of names that carry the torch of representation: Mae Jemison, mission specialist on the Endeavour shuttle in 1992 and first Black woman in space; Sally Ride, the first American woman in space; Judith Resnick, systems engineer Tracy Drain, Frederick Gregory and more, according to NASA’s website.
“Now more than ever, we’re exploring space beyond the ‘beyond,” NASA quotes Nichols as saying in a speech she gave at its Goddard Space Flight Center in 2012. “I wish I could live forever so I could live to see it, because we’re on our way to the 23rd century that Gene Roddenberry gave us. … All our posterity will benefit from the growth of NASA.”
Nichols may not be with us in the march toward the future, but her spirit certainly will live long and prosper.
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