You probably know her as Lieutenant Uhura on Stark Trek, but Nichelle Nichols has done much more than star on a television show. She’s done a lot of work with NASA to recruit women and ethnic minorities.
She was born in a town outside Chicago. As a child, she made her acting debut in Kicks and Co, a musical by Oscar Brown. Though it was not as successful as expected, it was a good start. She took part in numerous other roles throughout her teens and 20s. Her most notable was being a backup singer for Duke Ellington at 16.
She made her film debut dancing alongside Sammy Davis Jr. in Porgy and Bess in 1959. A few years later, she was selected for a guest role on The Lieutenant which led to her role on Star Trek in 1966.
On Star Trek, she was one of the first black women to be on a television show portraying a character other than a servant. She was tempted to leave the show to pursue Broadway roles, but she had a conversation with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that changed her mind. He told her not to give up because she was an inspiration to black children and young women.
After Star Trek was cancelled, she started volunteering with a special project at NASA to recruit females and minorities to work for the agency. She started out by affiliating NASA with her company, Women in Motion.
The program was, overall, very successful. Among those recruited were Mae Carol Jemison, the first black female astronaut, Dr. Sally Ride, Dr. Judith Resnik and Dr. Ronald McNair, who both went to space before their untimely deaths aboard the Challenger in 1986.
Nichols has served since the mid-1980s on the board of governors of the National Space Society, a nonprofit, educational space advocacy organization. She remains an enthusiastic advocate for space exploration.
In 2015, she flew on NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) Boeing 747SP, which analyzed the atmospheres of Mars and Saturn. She has also been a special guest at several NASA events including takeoffs and landings. Notably, she and her Star Trek cast mates were present for the unveiling of the first space shuttle, Enterprise in 1976.
She has received numerous awards and honors over the years. In 2016, she received The Life Career Award, from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. She is 85 and lives in California. Until a few years ago, she continued making public appearances and speeches. Unfortunately, she suffers from dementia and in May, her son announced legal documents had been filed to give her children control of her estate.
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