Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty ImagesActress Nichelle Nichols — “Lt. Uhura” — at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood on Nov. 3, 2010.

I was talking with my friend Nichelle on the phone last night about her trip to NYC this weekend to be honored as a pioneer in television and to make an appearance on The View Monday.   I told her to be sure to remind Whoopi of her San Diego roots at the Big Kitchen!   Read the article below of Nichelle’s conversations with MLK.   She is quite an amazing lady!  ~GelderHead

The nation honors the memory of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday. And among NPR’s offerings that day will be a fascinating story from actress Nichelle Nichols — known to fans around the world as “Lt. Uhura” on the original Star Trek TV series and six of the later big-screen movies based on that vision of the future.

Star Trek went on the air in 1966. Tell Me More host Michel Martin spoke with Nichols about how the actress almost left the show after one season to return to her first love — the musical stage.

But at an NAACP dinner in Los Angeles, Nichols says, King told her he was her biggest fan. When Nichols (who has shared this story before, including in her autobiography) told King she was planning to leave the show, he told her she couldn’t do that.

Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, Nichols says King told her, was showing the nation a universe where ” ‘for the first time, we [African-Americans] are being seen the world over … as we should be seen’.” And ” ‘you have created a character’ ” that is critical to that, he said.

King also told her that ” ‘this is the only show that my wife Coretta and I will allow our little children to stay up and watch?’ “

“I was … speechless,” Nichols says.

She decided to stay on the show. The Lt. Uhura character, as Michel Martin attests, became an icon — inspiring young black kids, especially girls. When Uhura and Captain Kirk (who, as you probably know, was played by the white actor William Shatner) kissed in the Plato’s Stepchildren episode, a racial barrier was broken.

Nichols, 78, is still busy acting.

Much more from the conversation, as we said, is due on Monday’s edition of Tell Me More. Click here to find an NPR station that broadcasts or streams the show.