I Was Lt. Uhura

I caught her on reruns—Nichelle Nichols

from the original Star Trek series. She was

Black like me. Dark as me. Cosmic in her

mini dress, black boots and hoop earrings.

Not a maid, and not Julia—Diahann Carroll

was too much like my mother, grounded

by pain. I wanted to be astonishing as a

cosmos, not ordinary matter. That dark

energy I longed for but could not name.

Could see myself on a starship long before

teaching in a classroom. One Halloween

I dressed the part—short red skirt, black

go-go boots. My ex-husband went as Keyrock,

SNL’s Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. We were

star-crossed, from alternate universes. But I loved her,

loved her intergalacticness, her all-hands-

on-deckness facing the final frontier—

beyond death—voluminous and unknown.

Three seasons, 79 episodes. Every week

someone threatened to destroy the universe,

yet no one called Uhura a DEI hire, though

they might have thought it. Her character

was a polyglot. Fourth in command, she was

more than a galactic space operator.

A senior officer who wasn’t killed off

like the red shirts on away teams. Uhura,

from “uhuru,” Swahili for freedom,

the possibilities no longer lightyears away.

Nichelle Nichols almost left after one season

until Martin Luther King Jr. convinced her to stay.

There was a future, and we were in it.

Even Kirk couldn’t keep his eyes off of her.

The first interracial kiss on TV between them

was made to look like torture, but we knew

he wanted more. How did I feel seen,

understand our value in the world?

I looked up to the stars, the universe

blacker and more beautiful than

I imagined. Uhura didn’t have to prove

she belonged. She listened to the big void

and translated our dreams, boldly going

wherever the hell she wanted to go.