Cross was born in Pretoria, South Africa before the Apartheid era, when racial segregation was less formalised.
[1] On 16 June 1976, Cross was working in Soweto for the Johannesburg City Council, which ran the Orlando sheltered employment workshop.
Originally, the penalties for refusing service ranged from 10 to 12 months in prison when the law was initially created.
[1] The anti-consciption movement was largely confined to South African "peace churches," such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, until the very late 1970s, when other activists, such as Nan Cross, began to campaign against the draft.
[1] She would later become a founding member of the End Conscription Campaign in 1983[1] as the conscientious objectors movement slowly began to gain increased support.
She was interrogated several times in her Kensington home by South African Security Police, though never officially detained.
South African young white males began to question their mandatory military service and increasingly saw it as an immoral war to defend apartheid.
[1] Cross helped almost 2000 young men apply for military conscription exclusion to the Board for Religious Objectors.
[1] The Ceasefire Campaign has worked for an end to participation in the arms trade by the government of South Africa.
She once climbed a tank at a South African weapons exhibition and attached stickers to it which read, "Arms are for hugging, not killing".
[2] Laura Pollecutt, acting coordinator of the Ceasefire Campaign, said of Nan Cross, "She was a tiny little woman, but she wasn't afraid of anything.
She regularly attended court when the law came down on them and gave support and solace to their families...Her ability to integrate her religious faith with her commitment to social justice and non-violence drew her into anti-apartheid activity.