Commodore Stone (played by Percy Rodriguez) from TOS episode “The Court Martial”. Stone was the highest ranking black character (and possibly the highest ranking person of color) in The Original Series. Think about this though: “The Court Martial” aired in 1967 and featured a white character (Kirk) being subordinate to a black man and it was treated as natural as if Stone were white.
“The Court Martial” also featured a Starfleet captain of Indian or South Asian descent named Chandra (played by Reginald Lal Singh). This is interesting in of itself because even though Chandra was the same rank as Kirk, he might have been superior to him in seniority if he was captain longer than Kirk.
Gene Roddenberry just did not give a single fuck about racists getting pissed off with this episode.
Fibromyangela 