The TV Classic Martin Luther King Jr. Cherished Most

Martin Luther King Jr. understood television’s reach. He watched how it shaped minds in living rooms across America. He also knew it could show a better version of the world, one where dignity was not an exception but the norm.

Friends and colleagues remembered how careful he was about what his children saw. He wanted stories that lifted them up. He wanted characters who looked like them to be treated with respect. At a key moment in the late 1960s, a single series checked those boxes for him and for his family.

That show was Star Trek. King met actor Nichelle Nichols at a fundraiser and introduced himself not as a movement icon but as an admirer. “You cannot. You cannot!” he told her when she mentioned plans to leave the series. He called himself her biggest fan and made clear that her place on the bridge mattered.

King also explained why the series mattered beyond celebrity. To Nichols, he said, “You are marching. You are reflecting what we are fighting for.” It was a simple line that carried the weight of the moment. In his view, her presence as a Black woman in a position of authority showed children what progress looked like in everyday life.

Nichols has shared that King went even further in private conversation about how his family watched the show together. He singled it out as the one program his household made time for, even when bedtime rules said otherwise. That personal endorsement helps explain why many close to him describe the series as the one he valued most on television.

His message landed. Nichols later recalled King’s firmness about staying with the role. “He told me not only that I shouldn’t but I couldn’t leave.” She took his words to heart and returned to the set with a new sense of purpose. The moment rippled outward, encouraging viewers who rarely saw themselves portrayed with authority and poise.

Looking back, it is easy to see why this was the series King favored. It pictured a future where people worked side by side and got judged by their skill and character. It cast Nichols not as a stereotype but as a trusted officer. It gave families like his a weekly ritual worth keeping. And thanks to one conversation at a fundraiser, it kept one of its most important voices exactly where she needed to be.