The Touching True Story of How Martin Luther King got Nichelle Nichols (Lt. Uhura) not to Leave STAR TREK

I came across an incredibly interesting and touching story today about how civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King talked Nichelle Niclols, who played Lt. Uhura in the original Star Trek series and movies, to stay on the show after she handed Gene Roddenberry her resignation half way through the second season. The next day she was invited to speak on a dais by the NAACP at UCLA, and this is her account of what happened.

I've never heard this story before, and it was incredibly heartwarming. It reveals much about Star Trek that maybe not many people have thought about, and I just had to share this story with you.  Please read it below.

I hope you will get the story right this time, because for some reason, no one has ever gotten this story right,(laughs). I, after the first season, because my heart was still on Broadway and the performing arts part of me, the musical performing arts of me was yearning to leave. I never intended to be an actress other than in the theater. So for me, TV and movies, that was something to help me get from here to there. And so it was a shock for me to be cast in Star Trek . A shock and a joy. I was performing in England at the time of the inception of the show and my agent tracked me down in Paris and told me that they were doing a show called Star Trek, assuming that I’d know what that was. Because I’d been in and out of the country for so long.

Now I’d known Gene Rodenberry since he’d given me my first TV starring role in a show that he’d done called the ‘The Lieutenant’. And he was one of the first people of that stature that gave me encouragement. He called my agent and said can you find Nichelle, because I need her for a role in this show and  wherever she is, get her back here because I want a woman head of a department on the bridge. He changed the role from a man heading communications on the bridge and he wanted a woman of color. He wanted me and I came back and got the role. So the first year went by, and I enjoyed doing the role, to me at that time it was very challenging [laughs] but I played my role to the hilt, being the head of communications and all that and by this time the show had aired and I was starting to get notice and on the side I’m singing at places and people are hearing me and calling and I’m thinking, “Oh this is my big break! I have to leave this little show and go do it! I was thinking Broadway here I come!’

And so I went on a Friday evening shortly before the end of the season to let Gene know that I wouldn’t be returning to the show, he looked at me like I was crazy, “YOU CAN’T LEAVE,” but he realized how serious I was and he knew I was passionate about singing, and he said, “I know what your dream is and so forth but don’t you see what I’m trying to do? He said take the weekend and think about my decision and how important this show is and how it was a first and if I leave, well he didn’t know what to say, but he said take the weekend and that way I could take the time to really think about what we just said and come back Monday and we would talk about it and if you really want to leave then, you’ll go with my blessings, but realize I want you to know that what we are doing here is really historic. The next night was Saturday and I was due to be a celebrity guest on a dais at an NAACP fundraiser at UCLA.

One of the organizers came up to me and said that there was someone who wants to meet you; and he says that he’s you’re best, biggest fan and I’m thinking it’s a Trekkie! [laughs] and so I said certainly and I got up and turned around and maybe 10 or 15 feet coming towards me I see Dr. Martin Luther King and I remember thinking whoever that little fan is, he’s going to have to wait, because here’s Dr. King, who walks straight up to me with this big, magnificent smile on his face and says, “I’m the fan!” because I’m sort of looking around for someone else, and he says, “I am your best fan, I am your biggest fan!” and I… I was at a loss for words, and if you know me, I am never at a loss for words.

I just couldn’t say a thing and he began to tell me how important my role was, what an inspiration it was. And you have to understand we were in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement, people were regularly being attacked by dogs, and marchers were being hosed on the television every night, real life things, and here I am in this futuristic thing on TV and he was so complimentary, he told me “I was so important and the way you have created this role,” and I am just looking at him and looking at him and I remember I just kept hoping he’d never stop talking. Because his voice is just… you know the voice. And I finally just start saying, thank you so much Dr. King and I am shaking his hand and still shaking from nervousness and I said thank you so much and I am really going to miss my co-stars.

And at this his face totally changed, and he said “What are you talking about?!” and so I told him I would be leaving the show, because; and that was as far as he let me go, and he said, “STOP! You cannot! You cannot leave this show! Do you not understand what you are doing?! You are the first non-stereotypical role in television! Of intelligence, and of a woman and a woman of color?! That you are playing a role that is not about your color! That this role could be played by anyone? This is not a black role. This is  not a female role! A blue eyed blond or a pointed ear green person could take this role!” And I am looking at him and looking at him and buzzing, and he said, “Nichelle, for the first time, not only our little children and people can look on and see themselves, but people who don’t look like us, people who don’t look like us, from all over the world, for the first time, the first time on television, they can see us, as we should be!

As intelligent, brilliant, people! People in roles other than slick tap dancers, and maids, which are all wonderful in their own ways, but for the first time we have a woman, a WOMAN, who represents us and not in menial jobs, and you PROVE it, this man [Gene Rodenberry] proves and establishes a precedent that validates what we are marching for because three hundred years from today there we are, and there you are, in all our glory and all your glory! And you CANNOT leave!”

And I did not leave.

I went back on Monday and told Gene that if he hadn’t replaced me and still wanted me to stay that I would and I told him what Dr. King said, and I’ll never forget him sitting behind that big desk that he had and he said, “so that’s your decision?” And I said I’d like my letter of resignation back please and I told him what had happened while meeting Dr. King, and I don’t know if you know what Gene looked like, but he was a big guy and was like 6’3” with that hawk nose and a great sense of humor and this brilliant mind and a futurist and–whatever great things you heard about him are just a small part of what that man was. I looked down at him sitting behind his desk when I told him the story and I finally shut up, and a huge tear is rolling down his cheek. And he said, “Thank God someone understands what I am trying to achieve.” And he reached down into his drawer and pulled out my letter of resignation and handed it to me, it had already been [laughs] torn up.

It is really amazing to see what the power of the media and story telling can do, Gene Roddenberry shared the same vision as Dr. King, a future of equality and peace, and Nichelle Nichols was the right woman for the job. Nichols would go on and serve as a spokesperson for NASA and the NAACP, and literally be the inspiration for hundreds of African-Americans to join NASA. 

What a truly inspiring story.