Sketch o’the Week- Nichelle Nichols!

Original available in the Studio Store

You knew this one was coming! I had to draw the late Nichelle Nichols this week after her passing a few days ago.

I was never a huge “Trekkie” but I did enjoy the original series as well as “The Next Generation” and many of the films and other shows that came from the Star Trek universe. You can’t be a comic book geek like me and not appreciate how great Star Trek was. As “Lieutenant Nyota Uhura”, Nichelle Nichols was an integral and much beloved part of that universe.

She broke ground as one of the first black women cast in a prime time American television show. She famously planned to leave “Star Trek” to take a role in a Broadway show, and was convinced not to by Dr. Martin Luther King, whom she met at an NAACP banquet. Dr. King told her how important her being a role model in that part was to black children everywhere and to the civil rights movement. She turned down the Broadway role and continued to play Uhura in the series. By all accounts she was an incredible lady.