Butterfly in the Sky
“Butterfly in the sky, I can go twice as high.” If you grew up with Reading Rainbow, I probably do not even have to finish the rest because your mind already did it for me. There are certain sounds from childhood that can transport you back before you even realize what is happening. That theme song is one of them. When people started naming LeVar Burton as someone who deserved his flowers, my first reaction was absolutely. But then I started thinking about his entire career all at once. LeVar Burton is Kunta Kinte. He is the man who told generations of children to pick up a book. He is Geordi La Forge standing on the bridge of the Enterprise. I knew every one of those LeVar Burtons separately. What I had never fully appreciated was that all of them belonged to the same extraordinary man’s life.
Nineteen Years Old and Roots
LeVar Burton was only nineteen when one of the biggest opportunities imaginable came into his life. Before acting became his path, he had spent years in Catholic seminary considering the priesthood. He eventually realized that was not the life for him and turned toward theater. While studying at USC, he auditioned for the role of young Kunta Kinte in Roots. Burton has described it as his first professional audition. He got the part. Think about that for a minute. Your first professional audition becomes one of the defining television events in American history. Roots aired across eight consecutive nights in January 1977 and became a cultural phenomenon seen by an enormous portion of the country. Burton’s portrayal of Kunta Kinte earned him an Emmy nomination and introduced millions of Americans to a young actor they would never forget.
America Was Watching
It is difficult today to explain just how enormous Roots was because television audiences were different then. There was no streaming service waiting for you to watch the program whenever you felt like it. Millions of Americans were sitting in front of their televisions at the same time watching the same story unfold. Nielsen’s historical figures put the finale at roughly 87.7 million average viewers, and contemporary accounts described record-setting household audiences. Here was nineteen-year-old LeVar Burton at the center of it as Kunta Kinte, an African man kidnapped, enslaved, and violently pressured to surrender his identity. The scene in which Kunta is beaten while refusing to give up his name remains one of the most remembered moments in the miniseries. For many Americans, Roots forced slavery into the living room in a way television had never done on that scale before. Burton later said the experience taught him something profound about the power of storytelling through television. That lesson would follow him for the rest of his career. He had discovered that television could entertain people while also changing the way they understood the world.
Then He Gave Us Reading Rainbow
After something as enormous as Roots, you might wonder what a young actor does next. Somehow LeVar Burton eventually became the man who helped millions of children fall in love with books. Reading Rainbow premiered in 1983 with Burton as its host. The show’s purpose was not primarily to teach children how to sound out words. It was designed to motivate children to read and to connect books with curiosity about the larger world. One minute we might begin with a children’s book, and the next thing we knew LeVar had taken us onto a farm, into a museum, behind the scenes of a factory, or somewhere we had never imagined going. Books became doors rather than assignments. That was the magic of the program. The official history of Reading Rainbow says its central goals included motivating young children to become avid readers and helping create stronger reading environments at home and school. Burton himself has described the goal beautifully: take a child who can read and help create a reader for life.
“But You Don’t Have to Take My Word for It”
One of my favorite parts came near the end when children appeared on screen recommending books they had read. Then LeVar would deliver that familiar line: “But you don’t have to take my word for it.” As a child, you probably heard it simply as part of the program. Looking back, I think there was a deeper lesson inside those words. Go look for yourself. Read it yourself. Think for yourself. Do not accept something merely because the person on television told you it was true. I find that especially meaningful now because so much of what I do involves asking questions and digging beneath stories that everybody else simply repeats. When something sounds a little too perfect, I want to know where it came from. When a historical claim has been passed around for fifty years, I want to see the evidence. Maybe some of that curiosity started with a man on PBS reminding children every week that they did not have to take his word for anything.
Television as Something More Than Entertainment
There is another connection in Burton’s life that makes Reading Rainbow even more meaningful. He had once considered becoming a priest because he wanted his life to have an impact on people. The creators of Reading Rainbow were themselves influenced by Fred Rogers and the way Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood formed genuine relationships with children through television. Burton eventually found a way to do something remarkably similar through books and storytelling. The pulpit changed, but the desire to reach people never completely disappeared. Instead of standing in a church every Sunday, he spent more than two decades standing in front of children telling them that books could take them anywhere. That may not have been ministry in the traditional religious sense. But there was certainly service in it. There was purpose in it. He was using one of the most powerful technologies of his generation to point children toward something older and quieter: the printed word. Sometimes the calling stays while the form changes.
And Then Came Geordi La Forge
As though Roots and Reading Rainbow were not enough for one career, in 1987 LeVar Burton became Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: The Next Generation. That meant some children knew him as the man telling them to visit the library while science-fiction fans knew him as an officer aboard the USS Enterprise. Geordi was blind and used a futuristic VISOR to perceive the world around him. Beginning in the second season, he became the Enterprise’s chief engineer. He was intelligent, capable, technically gifted, and regularly responsible for solving problems that could determine whether the entire crew survived. There was something powerful about seeing a Black disabled character occupying that place in a vision of humanity’s future. The series did not need to stop every week and explain why a Black man belonged there. He simply belonged there. He was part of the future. For a generation that did not always see Black people represented that way in science fiction, that mattered.
He Went Behind the Camera Too
What makes Burton’s Star Trek career even more impressive is that he did not remain only in front of the camera. He learned to direct. His first Star Trek directing assignment was the 1993 Next Generation episode “Second Chances.” That opened another chapter of his career. Burton went on to direct episodes across multiple Star Trek series, including later shows in the franchise. The people behind Star Trek had created an informal directors’ training system that gave actors opportunities to learn the craft, and Burton became one of its notable successes. This was no longer simply an actor reading somebody else’s lines. He was helping shape performances, camera choices, pacing, and entire episodes. By then, he had moved from being the nineteen-year-old newcomer in Roots to becoming a storyteller with authority on both sides of the camera. And he still had Reading Rainbow going at the same time.
One Man, Three Cultural Landmarks
This is the part that gets me when I put the timeline together. Roots, Reading Rainbow, and Star Trek: The Next Generation feel like three completely different pieces of American culture. One deals with slavery, ancestry, identity, and one of the deepest wounds in American history. One teaches children that books can open the world. One imagines humanity centuries into the future exploring the universe. Yet LeVar Burton stands in the center of all three. He helped us look backward through Kunta Kinte. He helped children look inward and outward through books. Then he helped audiences look forward through Geordi La Forge. Burton himself has said how fortunate he feels to have been associated with three projects that became so deeply identified with him. Most actors spend an entire career hoping for one role people remember. LeVar Burton somehow became part of three different pieces of our cultural memory.
Then the Children Grew Up
Eventually the original run of Reading Rainbow ended, but LeVar Burton was not finished with the idea. In 2014, he and the Reading Rainbow team launched a Kickstarter campaign intended to expand the digital version of the program and bring it to more classrooms. They were asking for one million dollars. They crossed that goal in roughly eleven hours. By the time the campaign ended, 105,857 backers had pledged more than $5.4 million. I love that number because I know who some of those people had to be. The children who once sat in front of PBS had grown up. Now we had jobs, bank accounts, debit cards, and credit cards. The man who had spent years telling us that books mattered asked for help carrying that work forward, and more than one hundred thousand people answered.
He Got to See What He Meant to Us
There is something beautiful about getting to witness the impact of your own work while you are still alive. So many people never really know what they meant to others. Teachers may never hear from the children whose lives they changed. Artists sometimes die before the culture decides to properly honor them. But LeVar Burton got an extraordinary answer in that Kickstarter. People essentially told him, “We remember.” They remembered sitting on carpets in classrooms watching televisions rolled in on carts. They remembered the field trips, the stories, and the children giving book reviews. They remembered his voice. They remembered how he made reading feel like something exciting rather than something they were being forced to do. And when he needed them, those children were adults who could answer back. That must have been one beautiful kind of confirmation.
Then Came Jeopardy!
We saw that affection again after Alex Trebek’s death when Jeopardy! began searching for hosts. A public campaign formed around the idea that LeVar Burton should get the job. By April 2021, a petition supporting him had more than 250,000 signatures, and the number continued growing. People were not just casually suggesting his name. They wanted him. Burton eventually got the opportunity to guest host the program. He did not receive the permanent position, and a lot of people were disappointed about that. But I keep thinking about something Burton himself said during that period. He described all of the support as a kind of victory regardless of whether he ultimately got the job. Hundreds of thousands of people were standing up publicly and saying, “This man matters to us.”
Give People Their Flowers Before the Funeral
That is really what this series means to me. We have a habit of becoming eloquent about people after they die. Suddenly everybody can explain exactly what the person meant to them. We find the old video clips. We pull out the photographs. We tell stories about where we were when we first encountered their work. Then we call it a tribute. But why should people have to leave this earth before they hear what they gave us? LeVar Burton is still here. He is still creating, speaking, reading, acting, and advocating for literacy. So there is no reason to save these words for later. The flowers mean more when the person can actually smell them.
We Followed Him Into Adulthood
That may be why LeVar Burton Reads felt so natural when he later began reading short fiction for an adult audience. It was almost as if Reading Rainbow had grown older along with us. The children had grown up, but apparently we were still willing to let LeVar Burton tell us a story. Maybe our knees hurt now. Maybe our backs remind us that 1983 was a long time ago. But the voice still feels familiar. There is something comforting about realizing that a person associated with childhood curiosity can continue speaking to you decades later. The subject matter changes because we changed. The fundamental invitation does not. Sit down, listen, imagine, and allow a story to take you somewhere you have never been.
What Representation Looked Like
There is another reason Burton’s career deserves attention, especially when we look back at the era in which much of it happened. A Black child could see him portraying an African ancestor who refused to surrender his name. That same child could see him teaching children about literature and curiosity without his Blackness being treated as unusual. Then that child could see him in a future where a Black engineer was helping run one of humanity’s most advanced starships. Those images do different kinds of work. Roots says our history deserves to be told. Reading Rainbow says our minds deserve to be cultivated. Star Trek says we belong in the future. LeVar Burton happened to stand at the intersection of all three messages. He did not create all of those ideas by himself, of course. But his face became attached to them for millions of people. That is a remarkable cultural legacy.
Why He Matters to Me
When I think about LeVar Burton now, I do not think first about awards. I know there are Emmys, a Peabody connected to Reading Rainbow, and many other honors across his career. Those recognitions matter, but they are not why his work stays with me. I remember what it felt like to encounter history with his face attached to it. I remember books becoming adventures with his voice guiding the way. I remember seeing a Black man in the future not as somebody’s servant or side story but as the engineer helping keep the Enterprise alive. I remember being told over and over that I did not have to take somebody else’s word for what was inside a book. Those experiences become part of you before you realize they are doing it. Years later, you start recognizing where some of your curiosity may have come from. That is a different kind of award. It is the kind carried around inside other human beings.
Thank You, Mr. Burton
So Mr. Burton, I want to say thank you while you are still here to hear it. Thank you for Kunta Kinte. Thank you for helping America confront a part of its history through Roots. Thank you for Reading Rainbow. Thank you for making the child who loved books feel like there was nothing strange about wanting to know more. Thank you for Geordi La Forge and for helping us imagine ourselves in a future where Black people did not have to justify being present. Thank you for showing that education and entertainment never had to be enemies. Thank you for telling generations of children that the world was bigger than the room they were sitting in. Thank you for reminding us not to take your word for it. Some of us listened.
Summary
LeVar Burton’s career connects three extraordinary cultural landmarks: Roots, Reading Rainbow, and Star Trek. Across generations, he helped Americans confront history, discover books, and imagine a future where Black people unquestionably belonged.
Conclusion
Mr. Burton, we do not have to wait until you are gone to tell you what you meant to us. Take a bow, sir—these flowers are yours.