For the millennials in the audience, he also taught us about recycling and care of the earth as the voice of Kwame on Captain Planet.

My personal hero, and he never let me down. His enthusiasm as Geordi helped me embrace my passion for engineering early in school.

Butterfly in the sky

And what do Bob, Fred and Levar have in common?

PBS

A common good in the USA.

Butterfly in the sky, I can go twice as high...

I wish I was LeVar Burton.

And of course, there was a Star Trek episode of Reading Rainbow. I think Sir Patrick Stewart also read a book on a couple of episodes.

Wait. This is where the design for the “Baltimore, there’s more than murder here” bumper stickers come from?

Some would say he was from:

"The Next Generation"

I will see myself out.

I like LeVar Burton for Star Trek: The Next Generation, but I've also read (and listened to) his book, Aftermath. It's a bit heavy on racial tones, but I think that was the point. In his dystopian future, the sun causes a lot more cases of skin cancer, but only in those fairer of skin, so Black people are hunted and skinned, with their skin being grafted onto rich white people to help keep them from getting cancer. Like a skin transplant. I guess that's easier than figuring out how to just add melanin to the skin somehow? Like reproducing it in a lab? Sounds like something Geordi and Data would attempt. But Burton didn't write Geordi and there's no indication he's an engineer IRL, he just played one on TV. What he is, is a writer. And I guess he wanted to address racism. Don't get me wrong, it's a good book, but a bit heavy handed at times.

The book never gets mentioned and I think it should.

LeVar Burton is an inspiration. If you missed Roots, whatever. He's relevant in so many more ways. Is currently in the film One Night Only (2026).

I told Pearce a thousand times I never wanted to meet Levar in person! I just wanted a picture, you can't disappoint a picture!

The Wikipedia page is a bit dry, what's a good read about why he matters to you guys? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LeVar_Burton

All of reading rainbow is available for download as well as Mr Rogers. I put them on a Plex server and my 3 year old can watch them to his heart's content, well kind of, but its wonderful that he asks for reading rainbow instead of the random garbage most kids watch these days.

Him and a particular Jack Russell terrier hold a special place in my childhood memories. They're the reason I love books

Mr RoDgers? Someone needs a little more reading rainbow.

As somebody outside the us I never heard of him not before I saw community :(

I just got a copy of Octavia Butler's "The Parable of the Sower" and I was ecstatic to realize it has a foreward written by LeVar Burton

He is a person, not a goat.

Also a very good children's podcast Sound Detective and the short story podcast Levar Burton Reads

levar burton, mister rogers, and alison martin. <3

a likely story was what made me want to drop everything and have a bookmobile when i grew up.

For anyone interested, there is q pretty good documentary about Reading Rainbow. It's called # Butterfly in the Sky iirc

Ice cold, 3 Kelvin take: Reading Rainbow was an excellent idea for a children's television show.

its because he went blind and became an engineer