Nichols died of natural causes, he said. Nichols played communications officer Lt. Nyota Uhura on the “Star Trek” television series and many of its film spin-offs. When “Star Trek” began in 1966, Nichols was a television rarity: a black woman in a notable role on a prime-time television series. There have been African-American women on television in the past, but they often played domestic workers and had small roles. Nichols’ Uhura was an integral part of the multicultural “Star Trek” crew. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called it “the first non-stereotypical role played by a black woman in television history.” Nichols is widely known for participating in one of the first interracial kisses on American television when her character kissed James T. Kirk, played by white Canadian actor William Shatner. In a 2014 interview with CNN, Nichols said the kiss scene “changed television forever, and it also changed the way people looked at each other.” After the three-season run of “Trek,” Nichols devoted herself to the space program. He helped NASA make the agency more diverse, helping to recruit astronauts Sally Ride, Judith Resnik, and Guion Bluford, among others. George Takei, who played USS Enterprise helmsman Hikaru Sulu, posted a touching tribute to his co-star. “I will have more to say about the groundbreaking, incomparable Nichelle Nichols, who shared the bridge with us as Lt. Uhura of the USS Enterprise and who passed away today at the age of 89,” Takei tweeted. “For today, my heart is heavy, my eyes shine like the stars among which you now rest, my dear friend.” “We lived long and prospered together,” he added with a photo of the pair doing the iconic Vulcan salute. The National Air and Space Museum called Nichols “an inspiration to many, not only for her pioneering work on Star Trek but also through her work with NASA to recruit women and people of color to apply to become astronauts” in Twitter. Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate for governor in Georgia, also posted a tribute to the actress. “Godspeed to Nichelle Nichols, champion, warrior and awesome actress,” Abrams tweeted alongside a photo of herself with Nichols. “Her kindness and bravery lit the path for many. May she dwell among the stars forever.” Nichols was born Grace Dell Nichols near Chicago in 1932. (Unhappy with Grace, she took the name Nichelle as a teenager.) Her grandfather was a white Southerner who married a black woman, causing a rift in his family. Blessed with a four-octave vocal range, Nichols performed in local clubs until she was 14. Among the performers she met was Duke Ellington, who later took her on tour. He also worked extensively in Chicago clubs and theater. He moved to Los Angeles in the early 1960s and landed a role in the Gene Roddenberry series, “The Lieutenant.” Several “Star Trek” veterans, including Leonard Nimoy, Walter Koenig and Majel Barrett, also worked on the show. When Roddenberry was creating “Trek,” he remembered Nichols. She was in Europe when she got the call. “(The agent said to me), ‘They’re doing ‘Star Trek,’ and I didn’t know what ‘Star Trek’ was,”‘ she said in an interview with the Television Academy. Uhura was not in the original script and Nichols was responsible for the name. She was reading a book called “Uhuru” — “freedom” in Swahili — and suggested her character take the name. Roddenberry thought it was too harsh. “I said, ‘Well, why don’t you make a change, soften the end with an ‘A’ and it’ll be Uhura?’” she recalled. “He said, ‘That’s it, that’s your name! You name it, it’s yours.” ” Nichols is survived by her son, Kyle Johnson;
