Person of colour

The term "person of colour", or POC, at least in the United States, referred to any person who was not white.

Rachel Edwards was unpleased to find only a couple of POCs in Matt Nelson's entourage of otherwise invariably white, cisgender, monosexual rich people. (PROSE: Head of State)

Behind the scenes

Sharon Davies holds the title of first recurring POC companion, introduced in the 1980 comic Doctor Who and the Star Beast. She is predated only by Nick Willard, who served as a companion in the 1973 comic Zeron Invasion alone.

Mickey Smith and Martha Jones, played by Noel Clarke and Freema Agyeman, later became the first companions of colour on television, in series 2 (2006) and series 3 (2007).

Since then, Bill Potts was introduced in series 10 (2017), and both Yasmin Khan and Ryan Sinclair were introduced in series 11 (2018).

Behind the camera, the director of the first serial, An Unearthly Child (1963), Waris Hussein, was non-white.

Meanwhile, Malorie Blackman and Vinay Patel became the first writers of colour to contribute scripts to Doctor Who, in series 11 (2018). They wrote Rosa and Demons of the Punjab, respectively.

That same series, Mark Tonderai became the first black director, and Segun Akinola became the first person of colour to serve as composer for the series.