09/07/2026
Celebrating Star Trek’s Infinite Diversity At 60
For millions of fans across the globe, September 8th is Star Trek Day, which this year marks the 60th anniversary of creator Gene Roddenberry’s wagon train to the stars featuring Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, Lt. Uhura, and a diverse cast stretching across thirteen television series, thirteen feature films, and six decades.
Not a runaway hit when Star Trek first aired in 1966, the show found a devoted audience in the reruns of the 1970s and the later movies.
I was one of the kids watching back then.
My father worked in television. One day, I complained that Star Trek didn’t air in the town we’d just moved to. He was the new program manager at a local station and shared that his station owned the rights to Star Trek in that market, but it wasn’t on the current lineup.
That news sent me out the door with a petition to my dad to air Star Trek. All the neighbors signed.
Star Trek taught me early the power of advocacy.
Today, Star Trek is caught up in our hyper-partisan and divided times. This January, when the latest iteration of Star Trek, the Paramount+ original series Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, first aired, the MAGA world was incensed by a diverse cast with a gay Klingon.
Stephen Miller, the Donald Trump acolyte and White House aide, declared modern Trek to be guilty of “wokeness.” Fascinating. You have to wonder if Miller has watched Star Trek.
In some places, like my state of Oregon, fans embraced Star Trek from the start. When Leonard Nimoy, Mr. Spock himself (in uniform!), beamed into Grants Pass in 1967 for a parade, there was pandemonium as huge crowds streamed in.
It’s the “wokeness” of Star Trek that has always drawn fans in. Roddenberry envisioned a future in which humanity would unite to address our most difficult issues and to explore the universe. In the Star Trek future, war becomes obsolete, poverty is no more, and humanity reaches for the stars.
Across six decades, Star Trek has dealt with issues ranging from war, race relations, gender identity, inclusion, poverty, homelessness, and more. Star Trek has never shied away from being political.
Who was on the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise? A cornfed captain from Iowa, a half-alien-half-human science officer, a Mississippi-born self-professed country doctor, a Black woman as the communications officer, an Asian man as the operations officer, a Russian helm officer, and a Scottish engineer.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion started with Star Trek. In 1968, Star Trek aired the first in*******al kiss. Some Southern stations refused to air the episode. When faced with xenophobia from a crew member, William Shatner’s Captain James T. Kirk famously admonished them to: “Leave any bigotry in your quarters. There’s no room for it on the bridge.”
When Nichelle Nichols, the actor playing Lt. Uhura, considered leaving the series, it was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who told Nichols, “You cannot leave. When we see you, we see ourselves, and we see ourselves as intelligent and beautiful and proud. Nichols stayed.
Star Trek had a Black captain, Avery Brooks’ Benjamin Sisko on Deep Space Nine, before the United States had a Black president, and women as captains, Kate Mulgrew’s Kathryn Janeway on Voyager and Sonequa Martin-Green’s Michael Burnham on Discovery, before the U.S. has elected a woman to the highest office.
Star Trek is, at the core, a story about adventure and exploration. It’s about Klingons, Romulans, and the Gorn. Star Trek is about phasers set to stun, Tricorders set to scan, raised shields, and beaming up or down. But it is also a lot more than that. Star Trek is about family, friendship, loyalty, the power of diversity in our lives, the importance of science and progress, and the need to live an authentic life.
We have a long way to go before we get close to the future that Star Trek envisions, and the future of Star Trek on TV is uncertain. Shortly after Miller’s criticism, Paramount+, in the midst of a controversial merger and citing ratings, canceled Star Trek: Starfleet Academy and decided to conclude the only other current Star Trek series, Strange New Worlds.
As we celebrate the first 60 years of Star Trek and wait to see what the next 60 years bring to the franchise, with its hopeful and progressive message, it is worth reflecting on all the gifts Star Trek has given fans in the first 60 years.
Live long and prosper.
Rev. Dr. Chuck Currie is a minister in the United Church of Christ in Portland, Oregon, and a nerd. You can see his nerdy Star Trek Collection at https://www.instagram.com/startrekcollection.
