Search the Community

She helped break ground on TV by showing a Black woman in a position of authority and who shared with co-star William Shatner one of the first interracial kisses on American prime-time television Nichelle Nichols, an actress whose role as the communications chief Uhura in the original “Star Trek” franchise in the 1960s helped break ground on TV by showing a Black woman in a position of authority and who shared with co-star William Shatner one of the first interracial kisses on American prime-time television, died July 30 at 89. Her son, Kyle Johnson, announced the death on Facebook. Her former agent Zachery McGinnis also confirmed the death but did not have further details. Ms. Nichols had a stroke in 2015. "I regret to inform you that a great light in the firmament no longer shines for us as it has for so many years," he son, Kyle Johnson, posted on Instagram Sunday. Johnson said his mother died Saturday night after succumbing to natural causes. Toward the end of her life, Nichols was in an often bitter conservatorship battle with her son -- this after he was granted control of the apparatus once she'd been diagnosed with dementia ... a legal fight that went on for some years, and, at times, got pretty ugly.