Interracial kiss on ‘Star Trek’ 50 years ago

Scene between Kirk, Uhura would help shift attitudes in U.S.

WASHINGTON — It was the kiss heard around the galaxy.

Fifty years ago — and only one year after the Supreme Court declared that interracial marriage was legal — two of science fiction’s most enduring characters, Capt. James T. Kirk and Lt. Nyota Uhura, kissed on “Star Trek.”

It wasn’t romantic. Sadistic, humanlike aliens forced the white captain to lock lips with the black communications officer. But the kiss between actors William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols in “Plato’s Stepchildren” would help change attitudes in America about what was allowed to be shown on TV and made an early statement about the coming acceptance of interracial relationships in a U.S. still struggling with racism and civil rights.

The kiss “suggested that there was a future where these issues were not such a big deal,” said Eric Deggans, national television critic for National Public Radio. “The characters themselves were not freaking out because a black woman was kissing a white man. … In this utopianlike future, we solved this issue. We’re beyond it. That was a wonderful message to send.”

“Plato’s Stepchildren,” which first aired Nov. 22, 1968, came before “Star Trek” morphed into a cultural phenomenon.

Worried about reaction from Southern television stations, showrunners filmed the kiss between Shatner and Nichols — their lips are mostly obscured by the back of Nichols’ head — and wanted to film a second where it happened off-screen. But Nichols said in her book “Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories” that she and Shatner deliberately flubbed lines to force the original take to be used.

Despite concerns from executives, “Plato’s Stepchildren” aired without blowback. In fact, it got the most “fan mail that Paramount had ever gotten on ‘Star Trek’ for one episode,” Nichols said in a 2010 interview with the Archive of American Television.

Officials at Paramount, the show’s producer, “were just simply amazed, and people have talked about it ever since,” Nichols said.

While inside the show things were buzzing, the episode passed by the general public and the TV industry at that time almost without comment, said Robert Thompson, a Syracuse University professor of television and popular culture.

“It neither got the backlash one might have expected nor did it open the doors for lots more shows to do this,” Thompson said. “The shot heard around the world started the American Revolution. The kiss heard around the world eventually did … but not immediately.”

Throughout the ensuing decades, interracial relationships with black and white actors became more prevalent on television, spanning multiple genres from comedies such as “The Jeffersons” and “Happy Endings” to dramas such as “Parenthood,” “Six Feet Under” and “Dynasty” and back to sci-fi with the short-lived “Firefly.”

The trend is still not without its detractors. In 2013, a Cheerios commercial featuring an interracial couple and their daughter drew thousands of racist comments online.