Pioneering Black Women | Nichelle Nichols, actress, singer, NASA spokeswoman, and activist
Science is not a boy’s game, it’s not a girl’s game. It’s everyone’s game. It’s about where we are and where we’re going. Space travel benefits us here on Earth. And we ain’t stopped yet. There’s more exploration to come.
Nichelle Nichols portrayed Lt. (later Commander) Uhura for three seasons and six films of Star Trek. Uhura is a character who has had quantifiable importance to our society. She has fans in the space program, the entertainment industry, the White House, and famously includes Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Nichelle Nichols went on to use her name recognition from Star Trek in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s efforts to recruit women and minorities for the space shuttle program in the late 1970s and 1980s. Over the span of her long career, Nichols has released albums, written books, headlined stage shows, and charmed at conventions across the world. You can read more about her here.
She was the first black woman to go to space on tv (and her impact on representation on TV should also not be understated) but she also campaigned for NASA applications of diverse voices. Her campaign led to the recruitment of Sally Ride (first American woman in space), col. Guion Bluford (first black astronaut in NASA), and Mae Jeminson (first black woman in space).
Without her personal recruitment campaign (which she threatened to sue NASA if she put her reputation on the line to bring in these applications if they then did not go on to hire any of them) who knows how much longer it would have taken to get anyone other than a white man as a NASA astronaut.
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““The Star” [ Art for @theuhurabang ]
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