Today we Trekkies around the world celebrate 50 years of the groundbreaking series, “Star Trek” and the infinite possibilities it explored!

I was an eleven-year-old black girl from the east side of Detroit on September 8, 1966, and was totally enthralled with a show unlike any other I’d seen before. With a concept of multinational and cultural cooperation, Gene Roddenberry put into action the words of Dr. Martin Luther King’s immortal speech, “I have a dream.” 

Possibilities, endless possibilities of technology, vision, and understanding. There were others like me across the country who also envisioned the world where everyone was truly created equal and for 1 hour each week we got to journey into space with the crew of the Starfleet starship, USS Enterprise whose mission was to explore and learn from the galaxy, its lifeforms, and civilizations.

William Shatner has a documentary entitled “How William Shatner Changed the World”. Although boisterous on his part, Captain Kirk had a point. We see in “Star Trek” the early potential of computers, the idea of the cell phone, and although not yet, to my dismay, teleportation without turning into “The Fly”. 😄

Isn’t it tremendous what human beings are capable of accomplishing once we put our energy into progress versus standing still or going backward in time?  If we let go of the notion of race, right and wrong religions, sexes, embrace our differences as the melding of inspirational ideas and perspectives, there’d be no limitations to what the human race could achieve!

So, In the words of Spock, “Live Long and Prosper!”