Inspired by the Nicole Nichols memorial thread, I wondered if her kiss with Shatner on Star Trek was really the first?
Possibly “I Love Lucy.”
It is accepted to be the first “kiss her like you mean it” interracial kiss on TV.
However, in researching this question, I did discover something I never knew:
“In a 1966 episode, Lieutenant Uhura and Christine Chapel, played by white actress Majel Barrett, shared a friendly kiss.”
Define interracial, because Desi and Lucy were considered an interraciaal couple.
The Klan drove my dad out of Texas for marrying a Mexican by blackballing him from getting a job. Mom was not allowed to go to the white school or drink from the whites only fountain.
I see I was ninjaed.
This is definitely an apple and oranges comparison because the big thing in this nation has always been the relationship between the whites and the blacks. Heck, segregation wasn’t federally banned until 1964. and interracial marriage didn’t become fully legal in the United States until 1967.
Hispanics fought the same battle for the same rights. They just didn’t get the press because they were not the first to organize effectivly. We do appreciate the black movement and its leaders, they fought for human rights.
So yes, I think Desi and Lucy qualify as a legiitimate answer.
Nope, I’m sorry, but no one group other than the Native Americans have gone through what those people have gone through. There have never been white bathrooms and Hispanic bathrooms. There have never been a plethora of Hispanic lynchings. I could go on, but I think you see my point.
Don’t get me wrong, your people have been through a lot, but please do not use the word “same” when comparing what you have gone through in comparison to the Black experience in this nation.
You never been to Texas in the 60’s and 50’s. Your statement is insulting. Mexicans used the black facilties in the south. Racism is racism and crossed over to whoever the whites didn’t want in power.
But enough of the hijack. I’m out of here.
To put it mildly, this is oversimplified. Do you think Colored meant just Black and that Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans went to White schools, used White bathrooms, etc.?
It’s more complicated than that.
Id thought it was The Jeffersons.
Didn’t Sammy Davis Jr. kiss Archie Bunker before that?
First interracial couple. Married, even.
Sammy Davis Jr kissed Archie Bunker on All in the Family in 1972, 3 years before The Jeffersons started.
So who were the first white/Asian kissing couple? First native American/white kissing couple? Let’s open it up to all of the races. For instance, did anyone on a TV western kiss an Indian maiden? Did Hop-sing kiss anyone girls on Gunsmoke? These are probably tougher to answer.
Would Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz have been considered an interracial couple if he was born in Spain? Like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, Desi Arnaz appeared to be a white European whose family spent a few generations in Cuba.
If we are looking for the first interracial kiss on television, why even bother bringing up either of those two examples when you know that both the Star Trek and the I Love Lucy examples obviously predate them?
Desi built his own resort hotel in the Coachella Valley because he wasn’t allowed in the White ones.
My point was that even in the Norman Lear universe there was an earlier interracial kiss.
You could say that about all Hispanic people. He was clearly Cuban and was presented as Cuban on the show and in real life. Desi Arnez is a ground breaking person of Hispanic descent from Cuba, not sure why anyone would think he isn’t.
Also not sure why people continue to try to get off topic on this.
If “Hispanic” is not considered to be a distinct race, then the first interracial kiss might have been on The Ed Sullivan Show (season 12, episode 10) on November 16, 1958 when William Shatner kissed France Nuyen (Asian ancestry) during a scene from the play The World Of Suzie Wong.