Hailing Frequencies Closed Captain

Description

You all know just how much of a Trekkie I am, right? My most Favourite Character and species on the Star Trek franchise was Spock, the Vulcan.

My second most favourite Character on Star Trek was Lt Uhura. She was the communications officer and she had to know so many languages. She was also often the person who made first contact with new species and aliens.

This past weekend, Lt Uhura, formerly played by Nichelle Nicholls, died on 30 July 2022 in New Mexico, USA. She was 89 years old.

We all know the story of how Nichelle wanted to leave Star Trek after the first season, but her biggest fan, Dr Martin Luther King, told her that she had to stay, simply because she was the first person of colour on TV who was not playing the sterotypical slave or servant that many actors of colour had previously played in movies and on TV up until then.

In fact the classic line I read was Whoopi Goldberg, who first saw Lt Uhura on TV when she was 9 years old. Whoopi later told Nichelle how she went screaming through the house yelling for the family to "Come quick. There's a black lady on TV and she ain't no maid!!".

While Nichelle Nicholls was mostly saying things like "Hailing Frequencies open, Captain", she did also get to sing in one episode, and dress up in a sexy costume and threaten the male crew members in another episode. She was also one half of the very first interracial Kiss ever shown on TV as well.

Nichelle Nicholls made it possible for so many Women of colour to break out of the slave mentality and start doing those things that they were more than capable of doing.

Sure there were many other women of colour who broke a number of society rules and restrictions, such as Katherine Johnson and the other Ladies of colour who worked as maths calculators in the Space program, (Hidden Figures) but they were still hidden away and told to keep quiet about their jobs and their employers.

Nichelle was the first woman of colour who was protraying a main stream character in a mainstream career in a main stream TV show, in public, every week. And she was seen by millions of people of colour all over the world.

Nichelle later went on to work with NASA to help minorities and women to apply to NASA to be astronauts and to go out into space - just like Lt Uhura!!

This is my first tribute to Nichelle Nichols for the month of August 2022. There is no doubt that I probably be making more tribute layouts this month as well.

RIP Lt Uhura. Hailing Frequencies are closed.

Supplies

Photo of LT Uhura
https://theriver107.com/nichelle-nichols-uhura-on-star-trek-dead-at-89/

Paper and Elements from the SCIFI Bundle Collab (Jan 2019)
https://www.digitalscrapbook.com/marisa-lerin/kits/scifi-bundle-science-reading-space-stars-astronomy-astrology-gold-blue-purple

FONT - Radio Stars

FYI - more Details and Tributes to Nichelle Nicholls

Martin Luther King day - Jan 2011 - Uhura - transcript radio interview
https://www.npr.org/2011/01/17/132942461/Star-Treks-Uhura-Reflects-On-MLK-Encounter

More tributes by ST actors and cast - 31 July 2022
https://vnexplorer.net/star-trek-stars-pay-tribute-to-nichelle-nichols-s2962902.html

ST website - the most detailed story of why Nicholls chose to stay.
https://ca.startrek.com/news/remembering-nichelle-nichols-1932-2022

American Archives - Nichelle Nicholls tells the story of that fateful meeting with Martin Luther King. (2013)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSq_UIuxba8