Des Moines Register For Luana Nelson-Brown, navigating the predominately white Johnston School District as a Black mother of three had been a "battlefield without an army." Then she found her army. A few weeks after Mother's Day a year ago, she, along with a handful of Black, Latina and white mothers found sisterhood while working for change in their children’s school district. "The advocacy is the center of the group, but the friendship is the glue that keeps us together,” Nelson-Brown, 51, said. The group of mothers, which they've named Johnston Parents for Equity and Anti-Racism, or J-PEAR, began with three founding members: Nelson-Brown, Bridget Neely, and Shalome Musigñac-Jordán. A few months later, Lya Williams, Madelyn Houser Webb, KT Menke, and Bridget Porto joined.