Nichelle Nichols: Star Trek’s Lt. Uhura Owed Role To Martin Luther King Jr.

Nichelle Nichols was one of the most groundbreaking actresses in television history, the first African-American woman to take a lead role as Lt. Uhura on Star Trek and one half of the first-ever interracial kiss.

And if it wasn’t for Martin Luther King Jr., it may have never happened.

As the United States prepares to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, what would be the 85th birthday of the Civil Rights leader, one of the lesser-known stories of his legacy is once again resurfacing. Back in 2011, Nichelle Nichols recalled how she was disillusioned with the show after the first season, when Grace Lee Whitney was let go and she was relegated to a supporting character.

Nichols decided she would leave Star Trek, but a chance meeting helped her change her mind.

“I was at a fundraiser and the promoter of the event said there’s somebody that wants to meet you. He is your biggest fan,” she recalled. “I stood up and turned to see the beatific face of Dr. Martin Luther King walking towards me with a sparkle in his eye. He took my hand and thanked me for meeting him. He then said I am your greatest fan. All I remember is my mouth opening and shutting.”

Nichelle Nichols then broke the news to King that she was planning on leaving the show, but he had other ideas.

“I thanked him so much and told him how I’d miss it all,” she said. “He asked what I was talking about, and told me that I can’t leave the show. We talked a long time about what it all meant and what images on television tell us about ourselves.”

The role was not without its difficulty, Nichols said. Some places in the South wouldn’t broadcast the show because it dared to show a black woman in a place of power, she said.

Nichols said the cast and crew of the show were great, but racism still lingered at the studio. She even had to go in through a separate entrance than the white actors.

“Racism was alive and rampant there,” she recalled. “Some people said I wasn’t good enough, saying things like, ‘I don’t know how you got this role.’ And they kept waiting for me to complain and raise hell about it, but I decided to ignore it.”

Nichelle Nichols ended up having one of the most iconic characters in Lt. Uhura, groundbreaking moment in television’s first-ever interracial kiss with William Shatner, and she can thank Martin Luther King Jr. for all of it.