The first interracial kiss on broadcast television is often cited as having occurred in a Star Trek episode “Plato’s Stepchildren.” The episode featured a kiss between Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura and William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk.
As discussed below and elsewhere, the kiss may not have been the first interracial kiss on broadcast television, but it was an important step and an early one on a regular U.S. television series. Maybe they were able to break this new ground because the alien Platonians used their telekinetic powers to force the two to kiss.
This scene aired on television on November 22, 1968.
In this video below , Nichols explains how the kiss caused some controversy on set. She also explains how Shatner becomes a hero of the story.
While making the episode, NBC forced the actors to do the scene again without the kiss so they would have options in what they used. Shatner, however, ensured the kiss would be used by intentionally screwing up other takes without the kiss.
Was it really the first interracial kiss on television — or in a regular television series? Other sources cite an interracial kiss on a British television show in 1964 between the characters Dr. Mahler (Joan Hooley) and Dr Farmer (John White) on the show Emergency Ward 10. Some also note that Our Gang segments had played on TV where the character Buckwheat, played by Billie Thomas, had kissed white girls (and another source citing an alleged kiss on a 1954 Our Gang episode “Dog Daze” which involved Allen “Farina” Hoskins and Jacquelyn Taylor).
This informative and extensive discussion on Fake History Hunter also raises the question for this discussion about what is an “interracial” kiss. The post notes that in 1951 on I Love Lucy, Lucille Ball, of European ancestry, engaged with a kiss with Desi Arnaz, who was a Cuban-American. The post also goes on to address a kiss on the November 1958 Ed Sullivan Show featuring a performance of a scene from the stage play ‘The World of Suzie Wong” that ended with a kiss between France Nuyen (of Asian ancestry) and . . . William Shatner.
The article also documents other kisses, including an early interracial kiss between black and white people on U.S. television taking place on December 15, 1955. That kiss appeared in a televised production of Shakespeare’s Othello with Gordon Heath and Rosemary Harris. Fake History Hunter concludes that the first meaningful interracial kiss on television was either the I Love Lucy kiss or the Othello kiss, depending on whether you limit “interracial” as black and white.
But even if Star Trek was not the first to broadcast an interracial kiss on television, it was certainly an early such kiss appearing between characters on a regular United States TV show.
The kiss was groundbreaking for a TV series during the 1960s, as was the role of Lt. Uhura. Even Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at one point told Nichols that she played an important role as an officer where her race and gender were not an issue.
What is your favorite rule-breaking scene from Star Trek? Leave your two cents in the comments. (Thanks to Fake History Hunter for some updates to this article.)
