Nan got her start in politics through the Civil Rights Movement. She stepped into the Movement when she stepped into the streets on Aug. 28, 1963 to join the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. She went on to work for SNCC in Atlanta and Mississippi, led a community civil rights project in Virginia's Black Belt counties, helped launch an alternative newspaper and joined women's empowerment efforts in Atlanta. Before running for office, she worked seventeen years for Nabisco and was active in the Bakery, Confectionery, and Tobacco Union.

An Ormewood Park resident for 30 years, Nan has two grown sons, Danny and Jesse. She is a member of the Unitarian-Universalist Congregation of Atlanta. 

Nan has been a State Representative since 1987, representing in-town neighborhoods. She currently serves as the Vice-Chair of the House Democratic Caucus and was a former House Majority Whip--the first woman elected to that position in Georgia. Having served on the Committees on Ways and Means, Industrial Relations, and Economic Development, her legislative expertise includes health policy, women's issues, child/family policy, economic growth and security, workplace issues, civil liberties, civil rights, and environmental issues. She is a founder of both the Georgia Legislative Women's Caucus and the Working Families Agenda caucus.

Nan currently serves as the Chair of the Labor and Workforce Development Committee of the National Conference of State Legislators and is a founding member and Secretary of the National Labor Caucus of state legislators.

Nan is the President of WiLL (Women Legislators Lobby), a national network of progressive women state legislators who stand against excessive military spending and work to redirect those federal dollars to the greatly underfunded human services and environmental protection needs. WiLL is a program of WAND, Women's Actions for New Directions, a national women's group on whose staff she has served since 1997.

Her board service includes the Sapelo Foundation, the Center for Policy Alternatives and the Institute of Energy and Environmental Research. She also serves as an advisory council member of SCLC/W.O.M.E.N.  

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