Nichols was among the first Black women to have a leading role on a network television series, making her an anomaly on the small screen, which until that time had rarely depicted Black women in anything other than subservient roles. Uhura was an officer and a highly educated and well-trained technician who maintained a businesslike demeanor while performing her high-minded duties. Her role, however, was both substantial and historically significant.
She was generally clad in a snug red doublet and black tights Ebony magazine called her the “most heavenly body in ‘Star Trek’” on its 1967 cover. Nichols provided a frisson of sexiness on the bridge of the Enterprise. We even had outlined exactly where Uhura had grown up, who her parents were, and why she had been chosen over other candidates for the Enterprise’s five-year mission.A striking beauty, Ms. Spock, whom she admired for his daring, his intelligence, his stoicism, and especially his logic. As head of Communications, she commanded a corps of largely unseen communications technicians, linguists, and other specialists who worked in the bowels of the Enterprise, in the “comm-center.” A linguistics scholar and a top graduate of Starfleet Academy, she was a protégée of Mr.
And her name, Uhura, is derived from Uhuru, which is Swahili for “freedom.” According to the “biography” Gene and I developed for my character, Uhura was far more than an intergalactic telephone operator.
Gene and I agreed that she would be a citizen of the United States of Africa. Many times through the years I’ve referred to Uhura as my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter of the twenty-third century. It was only after I’d been brought on board, and Gene and I conceived and created her, that Uhura was born. Interestingly, though he’d said many times before that there might be something in this for me, that day I won a part that had yet to be created. “As I soon learned, this was the dream to which Gene had alluded so often in the past.
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