LeVar Burton Discovers Ancestor Was a Confederate Soldier

The 'Reading Rainbow' host learns of his complex family history on PBS' 'Finding Your Roots', sparking a conversation about race and ancestry.

LeVar Burton, the host of 'Reading Rainbow', discovered on the PBS show 'Finding Your Roots' that one of his ancestors was a white Confederate soldier.
The ancestor, James Henry Dixon, was the biological father of Burton's great-grandmother, Mary Sills.
Dixon was born in North Carolina in 1847 and joined the junior reserves of the Confederate Army during the Civil War, though he did not see battle.
Dixon fathered a child with an American woman who had been born into slavery, leading to Burton's extensive network of white cousins.
Burton expressed shock and conflict at the revelation, but also saw it as an 'entry point to talk to white America.'