I didn’t know that meeting a Star Trek fan would change my life.
I was told a fan wanted to meet me, and I turned and looked into the face of Dr. Martin Luther King. I was breathless. He said, "Yes, I'm the Trekker — I'm a Star Trek fan." And he told me that Star Trek was one of the only shows that his wife Coretta and he would allow their little children to stay up and watch. I thanked him — and I told him I was leaving the show. All the smile came off his face and he said: "You can’t do that." He said "Don’t you understand that for the first time, we’re seen as we should be seen? You don’t have a Black role — you have an equal role."
And on I went back to work on Monday morning. I went to Gene’s office and told him what had happened over the weekend.
And he said, "Welcome home. We have a lot of work to do."
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