A note from Wild Card host Rachel Martin: So we all get this one life, right? And we're lucky if we find that thing that truly brings us joy and gives us purpose. And if that thing also ends up touching other people in some way and making a difference in their lives – well, that's something to be grateful for. And LeVar Burton has done that over and over.
He got his big break when he was just 19 years old, starring as Kunta Kinte in the TV miniseries Roots . There had never been a depiction of American slavery like that before. And that role won LeVar Burton an Emmy nomination and a permanent place in our culture.
To me, LeVar Burton will always be Lieutenant Commander Geordi LaForge, the dry-witted chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise. I lived in Japan after college, and I taught English in this really small town. The woman who had the job before me left a huge pile of VHS tapes behind, with hours and hours of episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation .
I taught at the local middle school, and every day when I came home totally wiped out, I put in a tape, and I watched Captain Picard and Data and Geordi save humanity. Geordi was the heart of that show, which had everything to do with LeVar Burton. But if you ask people in their 30s and early 40s who LeVar Burton is, odds are they're gonna smile and talk about what a big deal Reading Rainbow was to them growing up.
As the host, LeVar Burton didn't just teach kids to love reading, he taught them to love themselves – .