The African-American actress Nichelle Nichols, known for having played Nyota Uhura in the famous science-fiction series “Star Trek”, died on Saturday night at the age of 89, announced this Sunday her son on Facebook.

Nichelle Nichols

Nichelle Nichols

“I am sorry to inform you that a great light in the sky no longer shines for us as it has for so many years. Last night, my mother, Nichelle Nichols, succumbed to natural causes and died,” the actress’s son, Kyle, wrote on Facebook. Johnson.

The message was accompanied by a photo of the star that Nichols has on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles, and on which a bouquet of roses was seen.

Nichols’ portrayal of the role of Uhura helped break down racial barriers on television by portraying an African-American woman in a position of authority.

Nichols also shared with actor William Shatner (Captain Kirk) one of the first kisses of an interracial couple on American television.

They did it in the episode “Plato’s Stepchildren”, broadcast in 1968, in the midst of the battle for the civil rights of African Americans in the United States.

Nichols had intended to leave the series after its first season to work on Broadway, according to several subsequent interviews; but, the reverend and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. made him change her mind about it.

As he explained, Luther King Jr. told her that her role in the “Star Trek” series was showing the children and women of the African-American community in the United States that they could have the same rights as whites and that, therefore, That, she had to continue acting and giving life to Nyota Uhura.

Her presence on television had an influence on other actors such as the African-American Whoopi Goldberg, who has said on several occasions that when she was a child and watched “Star Trek” she used to yell at her family: “Come on, come on quickly. There’s a black woman on the TV and she’s not a maid!”

After her role in “Star Trek”, Nichols worked as a spokesperson for NASA, where she sought to inspire a new generation of “intrepid” astronauts with a desire to learn, according to the official website of the actress.

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