Levardis Robert Martyn Burton Jr. His other roles include Cap Jackson in Looking for Mr. In , he was honored for his achievements in television with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. From until , Burton created and hosted the podcast LeVar Burton Reads , [ 7 ] [ 8 ] often described as " Reading Rainbow for adults".
Burton was born in Landstuhl , West Germany. Burton's father, also named LeVar, was a photographer for the U. Army Signal Corps stationed at Landstuhl at the time of his son's birth. Burton , was an African-American state legislator in Arkansas after the Reconstruction era that enfranchised African Americans in the South after the American Civil War; [ 13 ] he was elected to represent Jefferson County in As a teen, Burton, who was raised Catholic , [ 18 ] entered St.
Burton has described his first day playing Kunta as the start of his professional career. When asked about the societal influence of Roots , Burton is quoted as saying: "It expanded the consciousness of people. Blacks and whites began to see each other as human beings, not as stereotypes. And if you throw a pebble into the pond, you're going to get ripples. I think the only constant is change, and it's always slow.
Anything that happens overnight is lacking in foundation. Roots is part of a changing trend, and it's still being played out. Reading Rainbow was reimagined as an all new application for the iPad in , and was an immediate success, becoming the number-one educational application within 36 hours. At RRKIDZ, Burton serves as co-founder and curator-in-chief, ensuring that the projects produced under the banner meet the high expectations and trust of the Reading Rainbow brand.
On May 28, , Burton and numerous coworkers from other past works started a Kickstarter campaign project to bring back Reading Rainbow. To keep with the changing formats to which young children are exposed, his efforts are being directed at making this new program web based, following the success of the tablet application he helped create in recent years.
