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Volume LIII • Number 11
‘City
of
Roses’
www.portlandobserver.com
Wednesday • June 07, 2023
Committed to Cultural Diversity
Nikki Brown Is Not
Your Ordinary Clown!
Celebrating
Juneteenth and
encouraging
reading and
literacy to kids
By Beverly Corbell
This year’s Juneteenth celebration at
Lillis-Abina Park on June 17 and 18 will
start with a parade and Nikki Brown Clown
plans to be front and center.
Brown is more than just a clown and
was last year’s grand marshal for the Good
in the Hood celebration, honoring her work
in promoting literacy to Black kids.
But it didn’t start that way. In about
2012, Brown got bored afteryears working
for Multnomah County, so she decided to
become a clown, starting out at children’s
birthday parties.
“I was booking gigs over weekends and
made more than I was making at the coun-
ty,” she said, so she left her job and became
a full-time clown.
But she wanted to do more, she said,
and she wanted to promote reading and
literacy. Birthday parties paid well, but
it bothered her that the only way kids
could connect with her was for the par-
ents to pay.
So she left her county job, and about
a year later, through a series of events,
Brown connected with the Multnomah li-
brary system to read children’s books at
10 events, and spearheaded Black family
nights and Black literacy through the Black
Parent Initiative.
“At first I would just read a story, but
now I have a signature way of reading
a story that includes music,” she said.
“Something in a story reminds me of a
Nikki Brown the Clown
song, so I jump and dance around.”
Brown studied children’s literature in
college and said she has “an unhealthy
amount of children’s books in my house,
but that ended up being what was needed.”
Although she started out the traditional
way — doing children’s birthday parties
— Brown gave that up and now works
for four county library systems, including
Multnomah, Washington, Scappoose and
the city of Albany, promoting reading and
an appreciation for literature for BIPOC
kids. And she just signed a contract with
Portland Public Schools.
“Last week I started doing end of the
school year events, twisting balloons and
coloring sheets to interact with the kids,”
she said. “Because I promote dance and
music and get the kids moving, the DJ calls
me up and I get everybody moving. They
can either read a book or get into dance and
movement.”
Although she makes her own costumes
and learned to put on professional clown
makeup at clown school, she wears a little
heart on the tip of her nose instead of a big
round ball because she doesn’t want to be
intimidating to kids.
“I wear my heart on the top of my nose.
As an African American woman, I don’t
want to be scary,” she said.
And when she’s not being a clown,
Brown is does public speaking about “the
need to foster brown folks and also about
child abuse prevention,” and she practices
what she preaches.
“I am a certified foster parent, and on
May 17 my husband and I adopted three
brown boys from the California foster care
system,” she said.
Brown said she’s also a big supporter of
the Juneteenth celebration and spreads the
word all year long.
“I tell adults to put it on their calendar
and also try to tell the story of the mother
of Oregon Juneteenth, Clara Peoples,” who
she remembers as someone who always
fed those in need.
Peoples moved to Oregon in 1972 to
work in the shipyards, Brown said, and
was amazed that no one there had heard of
Juneteenth, which marks the day, June 19,
1865, when General Gordon Granger of
the U.S. Army arrived in Galveston, Texas
and informed enslaved people of African
descent that they were free.
The Juneteenth event is also free,
starting with a parade at the King
School on Martin Luther King Blvd. at
11 a.m., followed by two days of cel-
ebration featuring food vendors, live
music, raffles and more. For more de-
tails, got to juneteenthor.com.