RIP Lieutenant Uhura

[Hrafn]

Just read that Nichelle Nichols passed yesterday. Sad news.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Just read that Nichelle Nichols passed yesterday. Sad news.

Oh, no.

She was wonderful, an amazing person and a terrific role model, - in her life and in her iconic and extraordinary role as Lieutenant Uhura - not just for people of colour, but for women, and women of colour above all.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Just read that Nichelle Nichols passed yesterday. Sad news.

She was absolutely wonderful.

Lest anyone doubt the powerful influence that seeing "yourself" - when you, yourself, are a person of colour, and/or a woman, and/or a gay person - portrayed on screen, and on screen playing someone who holds a lieutenant's commission, someone who is clearly incredibly qualified professionally, and is both exceptionally competent and deeply respected - reading about Nichelle Nichols should lay such doubts to rest.

Apparently, she was debating quitting Star Trek after the first season, (in order to return to the stage), and was dissuaded by Dr Martin Luther King, (who introduced himself to her as "a fan"), and who informed her that she represented the future, a promise "of what we can be and are in 300 years", and, as such, was an incredibly powerful role model, adding that Star Trek was one of the few TV shows he and his wife permitted their children to watch.

Whoopi Goldberg has spoken of the "wow" monent of seeing Lieutanant Uhura - a senior officer - on TV as a child, telling her family that she had seen a black woman on TV "and she ain't no maid".

And Nichelle Nichols herself subsequently recounted with undisguised glee and astonished (and delighted) joy, President Barack Obama's confession to her that he had had a crush on her when he was a kid watching Star Trek on TV.

NASA recruited her to make ads designed to attract applications from women and people of colour (and were successful), and several astronauts (yes, women and people of colour, mostly) testified to the influence her very existence had on their choice of career.

For, it can be difficult to imagine yourself in such a role unless you can actually see it portrayed, see it given expression and voice, see it in front of your very (possibly incredulous, delighted, but disbelieving) eyes; but, once seen, one now knows that this is now possible, and thus, the doors of the mind can swing open, or be pushed open, and imagination and ambition and possibiities can transform lives.

 

[Roller]

I was saddened to read about Ms. Nichols' passing. What a legacy!

In its story, CNN referred to a four-segment, three-and-a-half hour interview with her by the Television Academy Foundation. This is an incredible resource of which I wasn't aware until today. Among many others, there are interviews with several Star Trek:TOS people from behind and in front of the camera, including Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner, Walter Koenig, George Takei, and Gerald Perry Finnerman, who was the Director of Photography on the series.

 

[Eric]

RIP, a life well lived and a pioneer for civil rights and breaking stereotypes.

 

[Alli]

She was a role model to millions of girls of all races. She is the star attraction of my ST collection.