wings1295 reblogged
Star Trek: The Next Generation “Time’s Arrow Part 2″
wings1295 reblogged
Nichelle Nichols on meeting Martin Luther King jr.
"I said "I’m going to leave Star Trek because (I was going to say ‘because I have an offer to star in) …I never got that far"
He said "You cannot - you cannot"
and I felt like that little boy Willis "What you talkin’ about dr. king"
(laughs) "But you know I didn’t say that"
"But I was taken aback, and I didn’t say anything, I just looked at him"
He said "Don’t you know understand what this man [Gene] has achieved?"
"I just looked at him" and he said "For the first time on television we will be seen as we should be seen every day – as intelligent, quality, beautiful people who can sing, dance, but who can also go into space, who can be lawyers, who can be teachers, who can be professors - who ARE on this day, and yet you don’t see it on television – until now…”
"and he went on and I could say nothing, I just stood there, realizing every word that he was saying was the truth"
"and he said, “Gene Roddenberry has opened a door for the world to see us. If you leave that door can be closed. You see your role is not a black role, and it’s not a female role, he can fill it with anything - including an alien"
"And in that moment the world tilted for me, and I knew then, that I was something else, that the world was not the same. That’s all I could think of, what dr. king said ‘the world sees us as we should be seen’ “and i remember being angry come sunday. “Why me? Why should I have to?…
"Whatever happened come monday morning I went to Gene, and I’m not sure to this day what I was going to say. He’s sitting behind that same dang desk and he had whoever he was talking to leave because I went there first. And I said “Gene, and I told him what happened" and I told him “If you still want me to stay, I’ll stay - I have to" and he opened his drawer and said “God bless dr. martin luther king, somebody knows where I’m coming from" and he took out my resignation — that was torn into a hundred pieces and handed me the pile, and we just stood there looking at each other, and I finally said “Thank you, Gene, and he said “Thank you, Nichelle"
"And my life’s never been the same since, I’ve never looked back, I’ve never regretted it. Because I understood the universe had somehow put me there, and we have choices - are we gonna walk down this road? are we gonna walk the other..and it was the right road for me"
I love this story SO much. This and Whoppi Goldberg’s story about seeing Nichelle Nichols on Star Trek:
"Well, when I was nine years old Star Trek came on," Goldberg says. “I looked at it and I went screaming through the house, ‘Come here, mum, everybody, come quick, come quick, there’s a black lady on television and she ain’t no maid!’ I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be." [x]
She wanted to be on the show so badly that she called Gene Roddenberry and asked to be on the show. He told her (and I’m paraphrasing here because I can’t find the original story) ‘we don’t have a big enough role for someone as famous as you’ and she told him ‘I don’t care, I could be the bartender. I just want to be on the show’ and so he made her the bartender. And Guinan is possibly the most BAMF bartender ever. I mean, even Q is afraid of her!
Nichelle Nichols on sticking with Uhura