Article
Children in the Fiery Furnace: Organizing for Racial Justice and the Legacy of Diane Nash
Daily Theology
(2017)
Abstract
In response to a group of clergy that had chastised him for his “extremist” tactics, Martin Luther King reminded them that he was not the inventor of civil disobedience. It was as old, he wrote, as “the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar.”[1]
The reference is from the Book of Daniel. The story goes: the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, demanded that three young exiles serving in his court—Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego—bow down to a massive golden statue. The young men refused, and so were tied up and thrown into a blazing furnace. To the king’s shock, however, they remained unharmed. Their constraints disappeared and they walked in the fire, free, joined by a mysterious fourth figure with “the appearance of a god” (Daniel 3:25).
Disciplines
Publication Date
May, 2017
Citation Information
Marjorie Corbman. "Children in the Fiery Furnace: Organizing for Racial Justice and the Legacy of Diane Nash" Daily Theology (2017) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/marjorie-corbman/7/