How LeVar Burton Taught Generations That Their Minds Matter
He was only nineteen—a college student with no screen experience—when his life changed forever. What followed wasn’t just a breakthrough role, but a fifty-year mission to show children that knowledge, imagination, and identity have power.
In 1976, LeVar Burton was a sophomore studying theater at the University of Southern California. His days were filled with stagecraft classes and Shakespeare rehearsals, not film sets or television auditions. In fact, he had never acted on camera at all.
Then he heard about auditions for a television miniseries based on Alex Haley’s Roots. The project told the story of Kunta Kinte, a young Mandinka man captured in Gambia and forced into slavery in America. The producers were looking for someone who could carry an emotionally devastating story—one American television had never fully confronted.
Burton auditioned. Against all odds, the role went to him.
When Roots aired on ABC in January 1977, executives were nervous. The series showed the brutality of slavery without softening it—the Middle Passage, the violence, the dehumanization. Afraid of backlash, the network scheduled it over eight consecutive nights, hoping to get it over with quickly.
Instead, the country stopped.
More than 130 million people watched. Families gathered nightly around their televisions. Children asked hard questions their textbooks had skipped. Black viewers saw their ancestors portrayed with dignity and depth. White viewers were confronted with a history they had often been taught to ignore.
At the center of it all was a teenager from Sacramento, delivering a performance far beyond his years.
Burton’s portrayal of young Kunta Kinte—his refusal to accept the slave name forced upon him, his determination to remember who he was—became unforgettable. One scene, in which Kunta is whipped until he submits, remains among the most heartbreaking moments in television history.
Roots won nine Emmy Awards. Burton was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actor. At nineteen, he had already changed American television.
He could have followed the usual path to stardom. Instead, he chose something else entirely.
In 1983, Burton became the host of a new PBS children’s show: Reading Rainbow. The idea was simple—introduce kids to books, explore stories through field trips, and let children recommend what they loved to read.
For twenty-three years, Burton spoke directly to young viewers—not talking down to them, not simplifying their intelligence, but honoring it. Reading wasn’t presented as homework. It was presented as adventure, freedom, and possibility.
Each episode ended with the same phrase:
“But you don’t have to take my word for it.”
Then children—real children—shared their own book reviews. The message was quiet but powerful: your thoughts matter. Your voice matters. You can decide for yourself.
The impact was enormous. Libraries reported books flying off shelves after episodes aired. Teachers saw reluctant readers suddenly eager to visit the library. Burton made reading feel empowering.
During that same era, Burton took on another landmark role: Geordi La Forge on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Geordi was blind, brilliant, and the chief engineer of the Enterprise. His disability was not a weakness or a tragedy—it was simply part of who he was.
For Black children, disabled children, and especially Black disabled children, Geordi represented something radical: a future where they belonged, where they were respected, essential, and capable.
Three iconic roles, one consistent purpose. Again and again, LeVar Burton used his platform to send the same message: You matter. Your story matters. Your mind matters.
As an adult, Burton never stopped advocating for literacy. When books began to be banned for addressing race or identity, he responded calmly—reading from banned books on television and reminding audiences why stories are necessary. When Reading Rainbow ended due to funding cuts, he helped revive it through a record-breaking crowdfunding campaign, supported by the very children he had once inspired.
In 2023, he received the National Humanities Medal for his lifelong commitment to literacy. Yet perhaps the clearest proof of his legacy came earlier, when hundreds of thousands of people signed a petition hoping he would become the permanent host of Jeopardy!. Even without the job, the message was clear: people trusted him, because for decades he had shown that uplifting others mattered more to him than personal fame.
Today, LeVar Burton continues to encourage learning, curiosity, and reading. At nineteen, he portrayed a young man fighting to remember his name. At twenty-six, he began teaching children that books could take them anywhere. Decades later, he is still reminding the world that imagination is freedom.
LeVar Burton didn’t chase celebrity. He built something far more lasting
