Star Trek has made fans boldly go on when they wanted to give up. Here they share stories of survival, escape and discoveryIn 1967, when the African American actor Nichelle Nichols announced she was quitting Star Trek, a very important fan changed her mind. At an NAACP fundraiser, she was approached by Martin Luther King, who told her that her character, Lieutenant Uhura, was the reason he let his daughters stay up late. `You´re reflecting what we´re fighting for,` he told her. `You´re marching.`Dr King was right. To a generation of African American girls, Uhura represented hope for the future. In a Manhattan housing project, an 11-year-old Whoopi Goldberg told her mother: `There´s a black lady on TV and she ain´t no maid!` Two decades later, Goldberg begged for a role on The Next Generation, explaining that Nichols had inspired her movie career. She was joined on the Enterprise by Nasa´s first black female astronaut, Mae Jemison, cameoing as a transporter officer. Continue reading...
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