NichelleNichols

This is true. I had several conversations with him over the years, and it sounds like the stories have gotten mixed and confused.

I was offered a role on Broadway. I was a singer on stage long before I was an actress, and Broadway was always a dream to me. I was ready to leave Star Trek and pursue what I'd always wanted to do.

Dr. Martin Luther King, quite some time after I'd first met him, approached me and said something along the lines of "Nichelle, whether you like it or not, you have become an symbol. If you leave, they can replace you with a blonde haired white girl, and it will be like you were never there. What you've accomplished, for all of us, will only be real if you stay." That got me thinking about how it would look for fans of color around the country if they saw me leave. I saw that this was bigger than just me.

I got to do a lot of singing after the series ended.

That is true.

That wouldn't have happened back in the original series, Uhura was a private person with a personal life separate from the rest of the crew.

He didn't talk about it, he just did it. It was who he was. He believed in that world, if you got it you got it. If you didn't get it, you'd see it anyway.

Any serious fan who saw the original series would know it would not have been possible, they'd laugh their heads off.