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LeVar Burton steps in to help a beloved California library reopening after devastating fires

The adage "never meet your heroes" is usually pretty sound advice, but not so for LeVar Burton.

Images via Kathryn Ross

Two months after the Eaton Fire, Altadena Library hosts community event with legend LeVar Burton

As California continues to recover from devastating wildfires, a beloved library in Altadena hosted a grand reopening event coordinated by Altadena Library director Nikki Winslow. The event took place outdoors in the library's parking lot complete with food, crafts, face painting, free books, and a reading from none other than literacy advocate and legend LeVar Burton.

Best known as the beloved host of Reading Rainbow, for playing Kunta Kinte in the 1977 television adaptation of Alex Haley's groundbreaking 1976 novel Roots, and as Geordi La Forge in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Burton's career spans nearly five decades.

I got to sit down with Burton minutes before the event and chat about the importance of libraries in our communities and how we can support them, especially in times of tragedy.


- YouTubewww.youtube.com


The adage "never meet your heroes" is usually pretty sound advice, but not so for LeVar Burton. I had the privilege of growing up on Reading Rainbow, first watched Roots in school, and enjoyed an Earth Day marathon or two of Captain Planet over the years. In short, Burton has been a big part of my life, and having the opportunity to meet and talk with him was equal parts humbling and exhilarating.

"Hey!" Burton said as he walked in and offered a fist bump. "I just saw you outside!" A little earlier as I'd walked to the library, Burton drove past in a dark car with the window down and called out, 'Hello! Thanks for coming out!" Immediately my nervousness about interviewing such a tremendous figure disappeared, and it didn't return as we sat together on opposite sides of a table in an empty room near the library's entrance.

Altadena is a historically Black neighborhood and has been something of a haven to African American residents for generations. Rampant redlining in the 1960s and 70s blocked Black families and business owners from securing homes and property in other parts of California, but Altadena, nestled at the base of the San Gabriel mountains, is where many Black families achieved homeownership and were able to begin building generational wealth. These homes stayed in their families for generations, but many were lost as the Eaton Fire blazed. Severely damaged by the catastrophic fire, Altadena has been fighting for relief and recovery.

According to the Altadena Libraries website, the Altadena Library district began as a single bookshelf in 1908, but grew into an independent special district in late 1926. In 1967, the main library, designed by architect Boyd Georgi, opened on Mariposa Street—Altadena's historic Christmas Tree Lane—where it stands today.

The Altadena Libraries (including the Bob Lucas branch on Lincoln Avenue), closed in mid April 2024 to begin extensive renovations, with the website providing updates on its progress through September 2024. During the fire, the main library thankfully remained structurally in tact and operated as a hub for first responders to access supplies and shelter. On March 4, it officially reopened to the public.

We jumped right into my first question: "Why was it important for you to be a part of the library's grand reopening?" I asked. "How did this all come about?"

Burton sat thoughtfully for a moment. 'Well...when tragedies like this happen, I know I'm sitting on a resource that could be of value," he said.

He then relayed how his involvement began in internal talks at his company, LeVar Burton Entertainment, when he got a call from a friend, writer and Altadena resident Katherine Beattie, who wrote one of the NCIS: New Orleans episodes Burton directed in 2019. In 2014, Burton published his children's book, The Rhino Who Swallowed a Storm, with fellow writer Susan Bernardo through Reading Rainbow. The book features a story within a story, where a young mouse named Mica is comforted by her Papa reading a story about a rhino who loses everything he loves in a storm and embarks on a journey toward healing. Beattie wanted to know if she could get a hold of some copies of Rhino to donate to families impacted by the Eaton fire.

That led to a conversation at Burton's company's weekly team meeting, which led to Burton's agent, William Morris Endeavor (WME) and their impact team getting involved.

"I'm getting emotional," Burton said as his voice broke. He continued, "Other people started stepping forward volunteering goods and services...and the initial impetus was just to, you know, donate books, to donate as many copies as we could...that was our original intention: 'get these copies to Los Angeles and get them to the Altadena Library.' And then...yeah...shit blew up."

Burton bursts into laughter while wiping his eyes. His emotional response made me wonder whether, beyond the tragedy, Burton has a personal connection to the city of Altadena given its history for Black Angelenos.

"I'm from Sacramento," he began, "where we don't have an 'Altadena.' However, I've lived in Southern California since 1974 and I recognize the value and the unique spirit of Altadena and places like it in these United States...well," he paused sadly, "these formerly United States." Taking a beat he exhaled and said, "This is important to me."

I told him I understood exactly what he meant, and after a moment, we moved on to my next question: "How can we best support local libraries and their communities especially after a disaster like this one?"

"By visiting them, right?" Burton replied. "The [Altadena] library has been open, but this is a sort of a public awareness celebration of the fact that this community resource is available...so, go to your public library! Engage the librarians who are national treasures and check out books and expand your reading horizons, indulge in your reading proclivities. Just...go to the library."

He sat back in his chair and smiled, his eyes still a little misty. I smiled and nodded, soaking it all in.

LeVar Burton, Reading Rainbow, Star Trek, Roots, Captain Planet, living legendCaptain Planet Stitcher GIF by LeVar BurtonGiphy


"So," I said. "Millions of people can attribute their love of reading to you and Reading Rainbow. Can you share a meaningful interaction you've had with a fan or viewer of the show?"

With a quick laugh, Burton launched into a story:

"So, pulling up here this morning," he said with a smile, "I got out of the car and I started walking and there was a little girl. Her name is Mariah and she's about that big—" he held his hand barely three feet above the ground, "—and her mom said, 'Oh! Is that LeVar?' I turned around and I said, 'Hi!' and Mariah lit up. She said, 'Hi, LeVar!'" It turns out Mariah's mother has been showing her daughter Reading Rainbowepisodes for just three weeks. "She ran and jumped into my arms! Now," Burton said, his voice breaking with emotion again, 'that made my day. It made my day."

I then asked how it feels to know his work has spanned generations of people.

Burton said, "Well, it's wild...I am acutely aware that I have been blessed with what I consider the three tentpoles of my career—I call them the jewels in my crown: Roots, Star Trek and Reading Rainbow."

"Wow," I whispered.

"I know, right?" Burton said. We laughed. "And this work has enabled me to be able to touch multiple generations of human beings and that's not only rare...um, it continues to blow me away. I don't know that I have words, Kat," he said. "Really, honestly. I recognize that I have been continually, remarkably blessed in my life and I come from a family for whom service is critical—key—to being a human being. And I have found this life of mine to enable me to be of service."

This brought us to my penultimate question: "How can we better promote literacy in diverse and inclusive spaces?"

"Well, first of all, I think we need to promote literacy in all spaces. Especially in those spaces that are not diverse and inclusive," noted Burton. He continued, "Because reading promotes empathy. And in the current climate today, it is those who are trying to dismantle inclusion and diversity that need to read more."

Here Burton paused for a moment before adding, "That's all I'm gonna say about that," with a meaningful look.

I took his lead and zeroed in on my final question of the morning: "Considering what's happened here in Altadena, do you think promoting empathy through reading will help those who are very far away from this tragedy feel it themselves? We see these things happen in other parts of the world and, unfortunately, they don't hit as close as when they're right near you."

At this, Burton leaned forward:

"We're at ground zero as we sit here," he said. "Driving in this morning, it's the first time I've been in the neighborhood since the fires were put out. I don't actually know if this event today will have any far-reaching impact beyond Southern California. We are still very much acutely aware of and carry with us on a daily basis the impact of this tragedy... And I know that the world is busy...at the speed of which the world is moving we are, all of us, engaged in the business of living on a daily basis. There isn't always enough time or opportunity to step outside of ourselves and focus on these moments of tragedy beyond the immediacy of the events themselves, the incident itself, right?

"So, it was obvious we had the attention and the compassion of the world community because this is a global story. And so is Israel and Palestine," Burton added soberingly. "And I know that my attention isn't always on that. I know there's a place in my heart, but my focus isn't always there because...Monday through Friday? I got shit to do."

I nodded as we sat in that moment together, our thoughts suddenly far from the library and the fair going on outside.

"But I hope," Burton continued, "that if word of this event gets out that it's a reminder of, hey, you know, this community is recovering and recovery will take a long time and if you can spare a moment for a thought or a prayer...please do. I really do believe that, at least for me, my focus today is on this community. I'm a firm believer in doing what I can from where I stand today. And today, I stand in Altadena."

With that, our conversation was over. We stood up as I thanked him, took a picture together that I'll cherish forever, and he gave me a tight hug. In an hour's time, Burton read to a crowd of nearly 500, made up of kids, parents, adults, volunteers, and visiting public officials. At one point the crowd sang the Reading Rainbow theme song to Burton, and as he read from his book, listeners were delighted by his animated, silly voices and his impactful reading pace that brought the gravity of the story home.

LeVar Burton, Reading rainbow, interview, altadena library, literacy, library eventMeeting LeVar.Image from Kathryn Ross

So, do meet your heroes if you get the chance. Sometimes it can be the experience of a lifetime—but don't take my word for it.

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Identity

LeVar Burton shares thoughtful reaction to finding out he has a Confederate ancestor

“There’s some conflict roiling inside of me right now, but also oddly enough I feel a pathway opening up…"

LeVar Burton/X (via Finding Your Roots/PBS)

James Henry Dixon was a North Carolina farmer with a wife and children when he fathered Burton's great-grandmother.

The United States has long been seen as a "melting pot," a "nation of immigrants," and a country where people of diverse backgrounds mix and mingle together under the common banner of freedom and liberty.

It's a bit more complicated than that, though, especially for Black Americans whose ancestors came to the U.S. by force as part of the "peculiar institution" of human chattel slavery. Through the cruel system of buying, selling and breeding human beings for generations, many people's ancestral knowledge was stolen from them, a historical reality that prompted "Black" with a capital "B" as an ethnic and cultural identifier for people of the African diaspora.

Curiosity about the varied backgrounds of Americans is the basis of "Finding Your Roots," a PBS series hosted by Harvard professor Henry Gates, Jr. The show has revealed some surprises in some famous people's DNA, including the beloved "Reading Rainbow" host, LeVar Burton.

Burton sat down with Gates to go over what researchers had found out about his lineage, and what they discovered floored him. Burton said that his mom, who had raised him and his siblings as a single mother from the time he was 11, had never wanted to share anything about her own personal history, so he didn't know much about his ancestry.

As it turns out, the man who was on record as being Burton's great-great-grandfather, Louis Sills, was not actually his blood ancestor at all. The man who fathered Mary Sills, Burton's great-grandmother, was actually a white man named James Henry Dixon.

Burton knew Sills when he was a child and referred to her as "Granny." He had always been told that Granny had some Native American ancestry, but she was actually half white, her father being a North Carolina farmer who had a wife and children at the time Sills was born.

Not only that, but Dixon had served in the junior reserves for the Confederacy as a teenager, too young to be in active combat when the war broke out in 1861. So not only did Burton have a white direct ancestor but that ancestor was on the side of defending the enslavement of Black people.

"Are you kidding me?" was Burton's initial response to this news. "Oh my god. I did not see this coming."

Once the news sunk in, Burton thoughtfully reflected on what it might have meant.

“I often wonder about white men of the period and how they justify to themselves their relations with Black women, especially those in an unbalanced power dynamic," Burton said. "There has to be a powerful disconnect created emotionally and mentally. So it’s possible in my mind that he could’ve contemplated it and was conflicted at worst, maybe repentant at best. And then there’s the possibility that he didn’t think about it at all."

Through we don't know the nature of the sexual relationship between Sills and Dixon, sexual violence was a ubiquitous feature of enslavement in the U.S. and the power dynamic between white and Black people at that raises questions about whether any relations could be viewed as truly consensual. Previous episodes of "Finding Your Roots" has unveiled relationships that defy assumptions one way or the other, so that element of Burton's family history remains a mystery. However, Dixon fathered at least nine children and had at least 40 grandchildren, meaning Burton likely has white relatives scattered throughout the country.

When Gates asked Burton how this revelation of having a white Confederate great-great-grandfather made him feel, he said, "There's some conflict roiling inside of me right now, but it, it, it also, oddly enough, I feel, I, I feel a pathway opening up…I believe that as Americans, we need to have this conversation about who we are and how we got here. But yet I see that we're so polarized politically and racially. We're not talking to each other. And so I've been looking for an entry point to talk to white America."

"Well, that door just opened," said Gates.

"Here it is," responded Burton. "Here it is."

Some people didn't understand Burton's reaction, highlighting the complexity of racial identity and the history of race relations in the U.S. in particular due to the reality of race-based slavery. One of the things people love about "Finding Your Roots" is how it opens up entirely new perspectives in people's own life stories, which is a very personal thing.

As Burton wrote in response to a commenter on X, "It is one thing to know something on an intellectual level, another matter entirely to be introduced to an emotional truth that is both surprising and wholly unexpected."

Burton found out a lot more about his ancestry on both sides, including the fact that education and literacy—which Burton has dedicated much of his career to—can be traced back several generations through his father's side. His father left when he was 11 and he didn't know anything about his background, but he actually had educators in his family going back to at least 1880.

Though Burton said it was "overwhelming" to find all of this out about his lineage, he also said he was "ecstatic" to learn it.

"Never in a million years would I ever have imagined that you would find information like this for my family," Burton told Gates.

Watch Burton's entire ancestry being revealed on "Finding Your Roots," starting at the 12:00 mark and continuing again at 32:50:

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Pop Culture

Man’s cheery ‘Hey good morning’ videos have given TikTok a breath of fresh air

People are calling him the next Levar Burton and insisting PBS give him his own full show.

PBS|TikTok and Levert The Bassman|TikTok

Man's TikTok videos creates calls for him to host 'Reading Rainbow'

Sometimes you see someone and know they've got a gift. It's not always something you can put your finger on, but you know there's something special about them and you want them to succeed. That's basically what happened to Levert The Bassman thousands, if not millions, of times on TikTok.

Levert, who starts every video with his signature cheery, "Hey good morning!" has been spending his time making education videos on the social media platform. Without fail, on nearly every single video, multiple commenters tag PBS and ask them to give him his own show. Something about his voice is calm and soothing, yet possesses an authority that makes people want to stop and listen.

He's made videos on a plethora of historical topics, and after multiple requests, he's even read children's books. People have been virtually pitching Levert to PBS to become the next "Reading Rainbow" host.

All you have to do is take a cruise through his comment section and you'll see people saying he's the next LeVar Burton. The internet has declared Levert a star even if PBS hasn't made him the host of "Reading Rainbow" or created an entirely new show just for him. But if you think his fans' pleas were for naught, you'd be wrong.

Social media is a powerful tool, and PBS reacted like any curious person or brand who got tagged a million times. They went to check him out. It didn't take long for the Public Broadcasting Station to see that the fans of Levert just might be on to something. PBS decided to partner with Levert and it all started with a box that contained a blanket and a postcard that read, "you, me & a documentary," back in February 2023.

@pbs

#stitch with @levertthebassman #greenscreen run to his page. We dare you to watch his videos and not smile, it’s impossible. #package #unboxing #pbs #blanket

The package seemed innocent enough, like a small token of acknowledgment, but PBS had something a little bigger in store. Nothing had really changed on Levert's page until months later when one of his videos popped up on the PBS TikTok page in a playlist they have labeled, "Learn with Levert."

Talk about people freaking out! So many commenters were so excited for Levert and the potential opportunities that could come for him. He's made multiple videos in his partnership with PBS, but that doesn't stop people from encouraging the station to give him his own show on television. Everyone still seems to be holding out for a "Reading Rainbow" reboot and who better to give it to them than Levert.

That catchy theme song could become future generations' childhood earworm and I, for one, don't think that would be a bad thing. Since the time frame between Levert getting the package and his audience finding out about his partnership with PBS was nearly six months long, it's highly unlikely a show announcement would happen so soon. All anyone can do is wait. Shows take time to come together, but there's no doubt that anything PBS might make with Levert as their host would be worth the wait.

@pbs

Lets take a little dive into the history of pregnancy, women, and prisons. Like for part two. @LevertTheBassman #PBSFilmFest #history #levertthebassman #prison #womeninprison

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Equality

LeVar Burton calmly explains the truth about 'cancel culture' to Meghan McCain

Raw Story/YouTube

If you're one of the millions who grew up watching LeVar Burton celebrate literature and literacy on Reading Rainbow, you know what a national treasure he is. The actor has been a hot topic of conversation on social media since the passing of Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek, as many feel that Burton would be the most fitting host to step into Trebek's shoes.

LeVar Burton is a natural educator, and his soothing voice makes even the tough lessons easy to swallow. Here's hoping that's the case for the folks who constantly decry "cancel culture" when Burton calmly schooled Meghan McCain on why that term is a "misnomer."

Speaking with Burton on The View, McCain brought up Dr. Seuss Enterprises' decision to discontinue publishing six books that feature racist imagery. "What do you think of that decision and about the cancel culture surrounding works of art or artists that are controversial?" she asked.

Burton said that he had just done a video voiceover for the Suess Foundation, reminding people that Dr. Seuss is more than just a company that pulled a few books from circulation.

"That man, Theodore Geisel, is responsible for generations of wholesome, healthy, wonderful, imaginative, creative content for children of all ages, and so I think we need to put things in perspective," he said.

"In terms of cancel culture, I think it's misnamed," he said. "It's a misnomer. I think we have a consequence culture, and that consequences are finally encompassing everybody in the society, whereas they haven't been, ever, in this country."

LeVar Burton schools Meghan McCain on 'cancel culture'www.youtube.com

"So I think that there are good signs that are happening in the culture right now," he added. "And I think it has everything to do with a new awareness on people who were simply unaware of the real nature of life in this country for people who have been othered since this nation began."

If people whose voices have been silenced or ignored are finally heard, and their concerns are finally taken seriously, and the result of that is things being changed or removed, is that really "cancel culture" or is "good things happening in the culture" as Burton says? While there are legitimate discussions to be had about how to address problematic works, the discussions themselves are a step forward. And the fact that there are finally consequences for language or actions that are hurtful to people who are already marginalized in society is a good thing.

(It's also a little hard to take people seriously when they complain about 'cancel culture' in one breath and then call for boycotts of businesses that defend voting rights, sports that allow players to exercise their first amendment rights, schools and workplaces that teach anti-racism, etc., in the next.)

Burton also spoke with Whoopi Goldberg about what it meant for him to act in Star Trek: The Next Generation after growing up seeing the original television series. The original Star Trek series was groundbreaking for showing one of the first interracial kisses on TV, and its racially diverse cast made a deep impression on a whole generation. Burton said that having Nichelle Nichols, the Black actress who played Uhura, on the bridge of the Enterprise "meant the world" to him.

"What it said was when the future comes, there's a place for us," said Burton. "And that's a huge message to send. I believe it's difficult, if not impossible, to grow up with a healthy self-image unless you can see yourself in popular culture."

Oh, and by the way, LeVar Burton WILL be guest hosting during this season of Jeopardy! so dreams really do come true.

Thank you, LeVar Burton, for being a voice of reason and wisdom in a time when we desperately need both.

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