Nichelle Nichols, born on December 28, 1932, was an American actor, singer, and dancer best known for her role as Nyota Uhura in Star Trek: The Original Series and its cinematic sequels. For African American women on American television, Nichols’ portrayal of Uhura was revolutionary.

Nichols volunteered her time from 1977 through 2015 to promote NASA’s programmes and recruit diversified astronauts, including women and ethnic minorities.

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Early life

Grace Dell Nichols was born on December 28, 1932, in Robbins, Illinois, the third of six children to Samuel Earl Nichols, a worker who was elected both town mayor and chief magistrate of Robbins in 1929, and his wife, Lishia (Parks) Nichols, a homemaker. Later, the family relocated to an apartment in Chicago’s Woodlawn area. Nichols went to Englewood High School for high school, where she graduated in 1951. Nichols also attended classes in New York City and Los Angeles.

Early career

Her big break came when she appeared in Oscar Brown’s ill-fated 1961 musical Kicks & Co. She portrayed Hazel Sharpe, a voluptuous campus queen who was enticed by the devil and Orgy Magazine to become Orgy Maiden of the Month in a thinly veiled spoof of Playboy magazine. Despite the fact that the play had a brief run in Chicago, Nichols drew the notice of Hugh Hefner, the publisher of Playboy, who hired her for his Chicago Playboy Club.

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She also played Carmen in a Chicago stock company production of Carmen Jones and in a New York production of Porgy and Bess. Nichols modelled on the side in between acting and singing gigs.

Nichols was also included on the cover of Ebony magazine in January 1967, and had two feature stories published in the magazine in five years. As a singer with the Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton ensembles, Nichols travelled the United States, Canada, and Europe. She acted in The Roar of the Greasepaint and For My People on the West Coast, and she received critical acclaim for her portrayal in James Baldwin’s play Blues for Mister Charlie.

Prior to being cast as Lieutenant Uhura in Star Trek, Nichols appeared as a guest actress in an episode of television producer Gene Roddenberry’s debut series The Lieutenant (1964), To Set It Right, which dealt with racial intolerance.

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Star Trek and Martin Luther King Jr

Nichols was one of the first black women to appear in a major television series on Star Trek. As a bridge officer, her strong supporting role was unparalleled. Nichols considered leaving the series at one point, but a discussion with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. compelled her to reconsider. Nichols was given the option to take a role on Broadway near the close of the first season.

She favored the stage over the television studio and hence accepted the position. Nichols went to Gene Roddenberry’s office, informed him of her intentions, and handed him her resignation letter. Roddenberry tried unsuccessfully to persuade Nichols to stay, so he advised her to take the weekend off and if she still thought she needed to leave, he would give her his okay. That weekend, Nichols attended an NAACP banquet, when she was informed that a fan really wanted to meet with her.

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King personally urged her to stay on the show, saying she “could not give up” because she was providing a vital role model for black children and young women all across the country, as well as other children who would see black individuals as equals, going so far as to favourably compare her work on the show to the demonstrations of the ongoing civil rights movement.

This reaction by King rendered Nichols stunned, allowing her to realise how vital her participation was to the civil rights movement, and the next day she returned to Roddenberry’s office to inform him that she would remain. When she informed Roddenberry what King had said, he burst into tears. Roddenberry hauled out her resignation letter, which he had already torn up when Nichols requested for her part back.

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Former NASA astronaut Mae Jemison has stated that Nichols’ act as Lieutenant Uhura inspired her to become an astronaut, and Whoopi Goldberg has also mentioned Nichols’ influence. Goldberg requested a position on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the character Guinan was developed specifically for him, while Jemison featured in an episode.

Lieutenant Uhura

Nichols kissed her white costar William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk in the Star Trek episode “Plato’s Stepchildren” on November 22, 1968. Although several older examples exist, the episode is most recognised as the first instance of an interracial kiss on scripted US television.

The Shatner/Nichols kiss was considered innovative, despite the fact that it was forced by extraterrestrial telekinesis. There was both acclaim and criticism.

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Nichols quotes a letter from a white Southerner on page 197 of her 1994 memoirs Beyond Uhura, Star Trek, and Other Memories, “I am totally opposed to the mixing of the races. However, any time a red-blooded American boy like Captain Kirk gets a beautiful dame in his arms that looks like Uhura, he ain’t gonna fight it.” On August 20, 2006, during the Comedy Central Roast of Shatner, Nichols playfully referenced the kiss and said, “what do you say, let’s make a little more TV history … and kiss my black ass!”

Despite the series’ discontinuation in 1969, Star Trek continued to have an impact on Nichols’ life in unexpected ways. In Star Trek: The Animated Series, she provided the voice of Uhura once more; in one episode, The Lorelei Signal, Uhura takes command of the Enterprise. Nichols expressed her disappointment in her book that this never happened in the first series.

Nichols appeared in six Star Trek films, the most recent of which being Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Nichols was one of four surviving cast members after the death of Leonard Nimoy in 2015, the others being William Shatner, George Takei, and Walter Koenig.

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Work with NASA

After Star Trek was cancelled, Nichols volunteered for a NASA special initiative to recruit minority and female staff for the space agency. She began this endeavour by forming a partnership between NASA and Women in Motion, a firm she helped to found.

The programme was a hit. Dr. Sally Ride, the first American female astronaut, and US Air Force Colonel Guion Bluford, the first African-American astronaut, were among those recruited, as were Dr. Judith Resnik and Dr. Ronald McNair, who both flew successful missions during the Space Shuttle programme before being killed in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986.

Charles Bolden, former NASA administrator, and veteran of four shuttle flights, Frederick D. Gregory, former deputy administrator and veteran of three space missions, and Lori Garver, former deputy administrator, were also recruited. Nichols, an avid supporter of space exploration, was on the board of governors of the National Space Institute (today’s National Space Society) beginning in the mid-1980s.

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Nichols went aboard NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) Boeing 747SP in late 2015, which conducted an eight-hour high-altitude flight to study the atmospheres of Mars and Saturn. On July 17, 1976, she was a privileged guest at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, to witness the Viking 1 soft landing on Mars.

She and the other original Star Trek cast members were there at the launch of the first space shuttle, Enterprise, at the North American Rockwell assembly site in Palmdale, California. On July 14, 2010, she visited the Johnson Space Center’s space shuttle simulator and Mission Control.

The documentary Woman in Motion about Nichols’ life focuses heavily on her work with NASA.

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Personal Life

Nichols was married twice, the first time to dancer Foster Johnson (1917–1981). They married in 1951 and divorced the following year. Kyle Johnson, born on August 14, 1951, was Johnson and Nichols’ only child. In 1968, she married Duke Mondy. In 1972, they divorced.

Nichols met with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office on February 29, 2012. She later tweeted about the encounter,

 “Months ago, [President] Obama was quoted as saying that he’d had a crush on me when he was younger,” adding, “I asked about that and he proudly confirmed it! President Obama also confirmed for me that he was definitely a Trekker! How wonderful is that?!”

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Deteriorating health and death

Nichols suffered a small stroke at her Los Angeles home in June 2015 and was admitted to a hospital in the region. A magnetic resonance imaging scan revealed that she had suffered a little stroke, and she began inpatient therapy. Nichols was diagnosed with dementia in early 2018, and she subsequently stated her retirement from convention attendance.

In 2018, her son Kyle Johnson applied for conservatorship following a legal disagreement over the activities of her manager-turned-caretaker Gilbert Bell. Before a court granted Johnson’s petition in January 2019, Nichols’ friend Angelique Fawcette, who had expressed worry about Bell’s control over her access to her in 2017, pushed for visiting privileges, including by opposing Johnson’s petition. As of August 2021, the disagreement and Bell’s 2019 court lawsuit about being removed from the guesthouse on Nichols’ property were still ongoing.

Nichols died of natural causes on July 30, 2022, in Silver City, New Mexico, at the age of 89.