Was this merely one man’s opinion or something that had been voiced in the front office? Then an incident occurred that made the feelings of some at the studio painfully clear.”Īnother telling moment came when she discovered the truth about her fan mail she had been receiving only a small portion of it. Suddenly I understood the action of the guard. Ten of you could never equal one blue-eyed blonde,'' Nichols said. ' said bluntly to me, ‘If anyone was let go, it should have been you, not Grace Lee. In another incident, a senior executive’s assistant spoke to her after Grace Lee Whitney was fired from the show. Watch Uhura Fix Communications Board in 'Star Trek' Evidently, you don’t work here no more.’ When I reminded him that I'd been coming through this gate for weeks and reiterated who I was, he snorted, ‘I don’t give a damn who you are.’ Furious, I drove down to the next gate and had to walk back some distance to the set.” ‘I work here!’ ‘Sorry, hon, your name isn’t on this list.

'One day I arrived at work and was surprised when the security guard at the gate, who had shown a subtle dislike for me and whom I knew by name, refused to let me in. Blatant racism is obvious and stupid, but the evil of most racist actions and comments is in their veiled insidiousness. And, as always, actions speak louder than words. “I’d seen enough to know what people really meant, regardless of how they tried to disguise it. “Having grown up as I did, I could not tolerate racist comments and actions,” she wrote in her 1994 memoir Beyond Uhura. But back on 20th century Earth, where interracial marriage was only just becoming legal in the U.S., Nichols’ personal experiences were less positive. Star Trek’s ambitious illustration of the future started capturing the imagination from the very beginning. You named it, it’s yours – and I know exactly where your character comes from: the United States of Africa.” When she protested there was no such place, he told her, “There will be in 300 years!” He felt it was too “harsh” for a female name, so she suggested the slight adjustment to “Uhura.” He immediately responded: “That’s it – that’s your name. She later recalled Roddenberry telling her: “I really like the name ‘Uhuru.’ … I want to do something with it.” On being told it was a Swahili word, he asked, “But a lot of people speak it, right?” 'There are a lot of languages in Africa but this is one that everyone can communicate with,' she explained.

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