“Star Trek” airs the interracial kiss heard around the universe

It may not have technically been the first interracial kiss on American television. But on November 22, 1968, when a “Star Trek” episode titled “Plato’s Stepchildren” features Lieutenant Nyota Uhura (played by Black actress Nichelle Nichols) locking lips with Captain Kirk (portrayed by white actor William Shatner), it’s a major cultural moment. The kiss comes just one year after Loving v. Virginia, in which the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional nationwide laws prohibiting interracial marriage between white and non-white citizens.

In the episode, alien bullies use their telekinetic powers to force Starship Enterprise crew members to sing, dance—and, in the case of Kirk and Uhura, to embrace and kiss. There had been other interracial kisses on TV before, like when Sammy Davis Jr. smooched Nancy Sinatra on the cheek in 1967, or when Shatner himself kissed Filipino actress BarBara Luna in an earlier “Star Trek” episode. But none had the seismic impact of this one. According to a 2010 interview Nichols did with the Television Academy Foundation, “Plato’s Stepchildren" prompted the most "fan mail that Paramount had ever gotten on 'Star Trek' for one episode."

The kiss wasn't the only effort by “Star Trek” to push boundaries in Hollywood. When the show’s creator Gene Roddenberry hired Nichols in 1966, it made her one of the first—and most visible—Black actresses to star in a recurring role on a major network TV series. (Ethel Waters had starred as the maid “Beulah” in the 1950s, while Cicely Tyson appeared regularly as a secretary in the 1963-64 series “East Side/West Side,” alongside George C. Scott.) What made Nichols’ role so significant was that she was portraying a professional scientist, not a stereotypical character more typically written for Black women on screen, like a domestic servant or mulatto femme fatale.

Nichols became a beacon of hope for the Black community, and went on to use her association with space exploration to help recruit Black and women applicants to NASA. In 1967, Ebony Magazine placed Nichols on the cover, proudly citing her as “the first Negro astronaut, a triumph of modern-day TV over modern-day NASA.”

Shortly after her successful first season on “Star Trek,” Nichols considered quitting the show to accept an offer to appear on Broadway. But she decided otherwise after meeting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at an NAACP fundraiser. As Nichols later recounted, King told her, “You must not leave… You have opened a door that must not be allowed to close… You changed the face of television forever… For the first time, the world sees us as we should be seen, as equals, as intelligent people.”

Nichols would eventually stay on for the entire three-year run of “Star Trek.” Her work helped crack open the door for even more positive representation in Hollywood for women of color. In September 1968, NBC premiered the show “Julia,” with Diahann Carroll headlining as a Black widowed nurse.