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Thursday, February 23, 2012

Science Fiction, Social Justice, Science

If one good thing came out of the cable snapping on the Martin Olaf Sabo pedestrian bridge it’s that it added about an hour to a public transportation commute that is typically just under two.  That may not sound like a great thing but it opened up a great opportunity to catch up on some podcasts. I finished a few Stuff You Should Know Episodes but the best podcast was from my guy Neil deGrasse Tyson’s StarTalk.
The episode, A Conversation with Nichelle Nichols, was as enlightening as it was entertaining.  Typically Star Talk takes on a more jovial mood but this particular episode broke that form to deliver a full interview with Nichelle Nichols, the actress who played Chief Communications Officer Lt. Uhura on the original Star Trek.  I grew up, not so much a Trekkie but certainly enjoying the occasional rerun and well aware of the impact of Star Trek on geek culture. What I never appreciated was the positive results the show had on the greater culture of its day.
In the interview Nichols recounted a sequence of events following the first season of the show.  With her eye on Broadway, Nichols went to Gene Roddenberry (the creator of the epic space serial) with a letter of resignation and news of an opportunity to be featured in a Broadway show.  Roddenberry was not pleased and asked Nichols to think about her decision over the weekend.  That weekend Nichols attended an event and was asked if she would be willing to meet with someone claiming to be her number one fan.  
To her surprise the next thing she knew Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. approached her with a rare smile. He announced himself as her number one fan and went on to tell her how meaningful her character was to him, his family and the cause of civil rights.  What I never picked up on, but what Dr. King was acutely aware of, was that Lt. Uhura’s character didn’t have to be black, a woman or even a human. But she was. The vision of the civil rights movement was reflected in Rodenberry’s vision as it played out in Star Trek.
There is no substitute for hearing the story for yourself so if you have 45 minutes or so, maybe in the car or on an extended bus ride, I highly recommend listening to the full episode.  If you do, you may be drawn into the next episode in which the interview continues and turns to the impact Nichols had on NASA.

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