The actor and singer Nichelle Nichols, who has died aged 89, was one of the first black women to be featured on American television in a non-subservient role when she played the communications officer Lieutenant Nyota Uhura in the original Star Trek series (1966-69). She was also involved in the US’s first small-screen kiss between a black woman and a white man, Uhura and Captain Kirk (played by William Shatner), in 1968.
When Nichols considered leaving Star Trek at the end of the first run, a chance meeting with the civil rights leader Martin Luther King at a fundraising event changed her mind. “He said I had the first non-stereotypical role, I had a role with honour, dignity and intelligence,” she recalled in a 2011 television programme. “He said: ‘You simply cannot abdicate. This is an important role. This is why we are marching. We never thought we’d see this on TV.’”
