Nichelle Nichols, Lieutenant Uhura on ‘Star Trek,’ Dies at 89 | Hacker News Reader

Nichelle Nichols, Lieutenant Uhura on ‘Star Trek,’ Dies at 89

nytimes.com

16 pointsfortran775 comments

Long live and Prosper

  William Shatner 91 (alive)
  Nichelle Nichols 89
  George Takei 85 (alive)
  Walter Koenig  85 (alive)
  James Doohan   85 
  Leonard Nimoy  83

TOS main actors live long compared to people from their generation https://u.demog.berkeley.edu/~andrew/1918/figure2.html

DeForest Kelly 79

Just didn’t want to leave him out.

I met her at a Star Trek convention long ago when I was much younger. I remember her emphasizing her contribution to race-relations and the other thing I remember is she kept some kind of mixed alcohol drink flowing throughout the convention such that by the time we were at the end, she was a little bit slurry.

I also met Scotty. He had a much more jovial attitude and wasn't as "into his contribution or legacy".

RIP.

I grew up watching the original Star Trek, not appreciating (at that young age) what a wonderful role model she was.

I did so as well. She was such a role model for black women that MLK himself had to convince her not to leave the show after her first year. And then there's this [0]:

> I met Whoopi Goldberg when Gene was doing The Next Generation and she had told me when Star Trek came on she was nine years old and she said she turned the TV on and saw me and ran through the house screaming: Come quick, come quick. Theres a black lady on TV and she ain't no maid.

On top of that, while on Star Trek, she was one half of the first and second interracial kisses involving a black person on US television, which was a big deal at the time [1].

She played a black person in an important leadership role on a very popular series. As MLK said to her: "We don't need you on the - to march. You are marching. You are reflecting what we are fighting for." [0] She'll be missed.

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[0]: https://www.npr.org/2011/01/17/132942461/Star-Treks-Uhura-Re...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_interracial_kiss_on_tele...

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