In 1966, Uhura was the first black woman as a main character on US TV who was not a servant. NBC refused to let Nichelle Nichols be a regular, claiming Deep South affiliates would be angered, so Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry hired her as a “day worker,” but included her in almost every episode. She actually made more money than any of the other actors through this workaround, but it was still a humiliating second-class status. The network people made life hard for Nichols.
