“Jim was formed by the word of God. Words were his stock in trade, and they resonated with God’s word.”
The Rev. Kevin Feeney spoke these words of James Foley during a Northwestern University memorial service for the slain journalist, helping to illuminate what friends, family and former teachers want the world to remember about him.
Foley, a 40-year-old freelance war correspondent, was captured in late 2012 by Islamic State militants while reporting from the front lines of the Syrian civil war. He was later executed by his captors, an act that was filmed and posted online in August.
Foley’s love of people, journalism and freedom, and the impact his life had on others, should far outshine the circumstances of his death, said those who spoke about him at Thursday’s memorial, organized by the university and the Medill School of Journalism, Foley’s alma mater.
They spoke of Foley’s unquenchable twin desires: to report the brutal truth of war, and to help those who most need it.
Diane Foley said her son’s death should not be in vain. Speaking before and during the ceremony, she praised Medill staff for supporting her family during both his Syrian captivity and his earlier 44-day detainment in Libya, saying: “Medill has walked with us for two years.”
“There is no way we can replace him,” Diane Foley said. “But we pray other young journalists will be inspired by his life to report the truth.”
Her son never lost his desire to help young people in underserved communities get an education, she said, recalling his years as a teacher before deciding to switch careers in his 30s.
“He was a courageous, compassionate, committed young man. He had so much work to do, and I pray that work can continue” through the efforts of others, and through the newly created James W. Foley Legacy Fund, his mother said earlier Thursday.
Diane Foley said she hoped both the American public and government can learn to appreciate journalists and aid workers who brave war zones. Like America’s military, she said, “they are the best of America, and we need to value them.”
James Foley’s former Medill professor, Ellen Shearer, said that when he studied national security and global issues with her, he was less concerned with policies or geopolitics than with the effects war had on people, whether they were American soldiers or civilian men, women, and children caught in the crossfire.
Shearer praised his kindness, from the Skype sessions he held with Medill students to his efforts to raise money on behalf of the family of a photographer murdered during his previous Libyan kidnapping.
Dick Stolley, a member of the Medill board of advisers, announced during the memorial that Medill has posthumously awarded Foley with its 2014 Medal for Courage in Journalism. It will recognize him at a Dec. 3 ceremony that will also honor fellow 2014 honoree Matthieu Aikins.
The award goes to journalists who display moral, ethical or physical courage in pursuit of stories, and Foley displayed all three, Stolley said, likening him to school founder Joseph P. Medill, who lived through the Civil War and lost a brother at Gettysburg.
Foley’s deep sense of faith was part of what drove his mission, said Feeney, director of Northwestern’s Sheil Catholic Center.
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