LeVar Burton was awarded the National Humanities Medal for his impact as an actor and literacy advocate.

I grew up on reading rainbow, then spent the last decade-(ish) having him read adult literature to me too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LeVar_Burton_Reads

Looks like his podcast website is mis-configured, but you can find it on any regular podcast catcher.

It's crazy that this guy has been a teacher to me literally my entire life (and I'm pretty old.)

Seems more than a little belated. But good for him.

Reading Rainbow was HUGE to me and my siblings as a kid and as an adult TNG is also legendary status so I'm really glad to see him get any and all recognition of how cool he is. I just watched the episode of Community that he was in a few days ago lol

I'm so embarrassed by this, but here it goes. One time, me and my gf-at-the-time got free tickets to Epcot to see LeVar Burton speak. My ex and I weren't doing well at the time, so we were drinking a bit too much. We showed up to Epcot early and pre-gamed at the Mexican pyramid. By the time we showed up to the Burton speech, we were pretty buzzed. My ex had a habit of disrespecting people in a passive-aggressive manner that is hard to define and point out. But this time, she was too drunk to pull it off right. My stupid self would go along with everything she would do because I just assumed she was right about everything since I'm so socially dumb (turns out I'm autistic 🤷‍♂️).

While we're there, she starts with her remarks complaining about everything: the weather, the audio, where we were sat (even tho we showed up drunk and late!), that we had to go to the talk (we didn't have to), etc. Since I'm too buzzed to think right and I was submissive to her lead, I'm going along with it instead of helping her calm down like I would do most times. I'm pretty sure Burton could hear us in the quiet breaks between his words. People around us start complaining. I finally come to and realize that we need to go. I convince my ex that we should leave by pointing out how unhappy she was. She's something like, "Yeah, let's go. I don't want to be at this stupid talk anyway." When we get up to leave, people around us start cheering and clapping. While this is happening on the way out, I'm acting like I don't exist while my ex is complaining back a la Karen. After that, I had to hear about how unhappy she was for like an hour. So embarrassing!

One day, Burton did an AMA on reddit, so I made a comment apologizing for that in case he remembered. He didn't respond to my comment tho. If you're reading this Mr. Burton, I'm really sorry for being so rude! 😞

Well deserved!

Mr. Burton is a treasure.

I put him right up there with the Mr. Rogerses and Bob Rosses of the world. Gotta love Levar.

I was walking up to take photos with the Star Trek cast when LeVar Burton noticed how I walked and commented on how much swagger it has. Totally made my decade.

More fish honors for Kunta

Should I take your word for it?

Let’s award him a seat on the SJC while we’re at it. We can kick out, oh say, Clarence Thomas.