Welcome to Retro Rewind, the TGJ original feature launched to celebrate TV and Film’s groundbreaking past.

Today, as she continues to push political conversation on ABC’s ‘The View‘, we take a journey to Whoopi Goldberg‘s past to revisit her game-changing performance in ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation.’

More below…

After rising to fame via the 1985 film adaptation of ‘The Color People’, Goldberg secured the attention of the creatives behind CBS‘ ‘Star Trek:  The Next Generation.’

Keen to collaborate with the the-then rising star, producers Gene Roddenberry, Maurice Hurley, Rick Berman, and Michael Piller met with her after learning she was a fan of the original ‘Star Trek’ series and its character Nyota Uhura.

Elated, they created the character Guinan for her to portray and watched its ratings soar to the 10 million viewers per episode point with her help.

Her time on the series came to an end in 1992 at the end of its sixth season and, as is often the case with Goldberg, break new ground in film and television with a performance many agree broke ground for women and people of colour alike.

Well, when I was nine years old Star Trek came on. I looked at it and I went screaming through the house, ‘Come here, mom, everybody, come quick, come quick, there’s a black lady on television and she ain’t no maid! I knew right then and there I could be anything I wanted to be.

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