| |
A Mighty Girl ~ 28 December 2020
Happy 88th birthday to Nichelle Nichols, who made television history in the
1960s with her portrayal of "Star Trek" character Lieutenant Nyota Uhura! In
this breakthrough role, Nichols showed an African American woman in a
position of power as the fourth in command of a starship. Actress Whoopi
Goldberg described the powerful impact that seeing Nichols in this role had on
her as a child: "Well, when I was nine years old, Star Trek came on, I looked at it
and I went screaming through the house, 'Come here, mum, everybody, come
quick, come quick, there's a black lady on television and she ain't no maid!' I
knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be.”
Nichols once met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at a NAACP fundraiser and he
shared that he was a "Trekkie" and "Lieutenant Uhura's most ardent fan." At the
time, Nichols was considering leaving the show and King urged her to stay,
stating: "'Don't you realize how important your presence, your character is?
This is not a black role or a female role. You have the first non-stereotypical role
on television. You have broken ground'... 'Here we are marching, and there you
are projecting where we're going. You cannot leave [the show]. Don't you
understand what you mean?' I told him that when I would go on hiatus from the
show, I could come and march with him and he said, 'No! You're an image for us.
We look on that screen and we know where we're going.' It was like he was
saying, 'Free at last, free at last!'"
Nichols did stay on the show with its entire run and went on to make history
again in 1968 as part of one of the first televised interracial kisses in a scene
with William Shatner, who played the show's lead character, Captain James T.
Kirk. Nichols admits that, at first, she didn’t see the significance of it. “I come
from an interracial family, and so it was kind of boring for me to be talking about
something I experienced every day,” she says. “It was not new to me, because I
lived it. But I realized it was new on TV, and I had the opportunity to bring it to
the world.”
Fans of Nichelle Nichols' iconic character will appreciate the Uhura Finger
Puppet & Magnet at https://www.amightygirl.com/uhura-finger-puppet
She is also featured on the new 1000-piece Women of Star Trek Puzzle for ages
10 and up at https://www.amightygirl.com/women-of-star-trek-puzzle
For science fiction stories starring Mighty Girls, visit our "Fantasy & Science
Fiction" book section at http://amgrl.co/2wfKIOZ
To discover our favorite books for children starring black girls, check out our
blog post, "Broadening the Story: 60 Picture Books Starring Black Mighty Girls,"
at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=11056
And, for stories about courageous girls and women of the U.S. Civil Rights
Movement, check out our blog post on "50 Inspiring Books on Girls & Women of
the Civil Rights Movement" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=11177
|
|
