MILWAUKEE — Jim Foley, to most, is known for his work as a foreign correspondent and his tragic death in Syria.
Tom Durkin, however, mostly remembers a lifelong friend he met when they were somewhat unruly college freshmen at Marquette University.
“You don’t have to mythologize Jim. He wasn’t otherworldly. He was like us. He was a normal dude who liked to have fun but he also knew when to be serious,” said Durkin.
Foley was executed by ISIS in Syria in 2014. While he can never return to Milwaukee for a drink with his pal Durkin, Marquette is forever cementing his legacy on campus.
This year, the Department of Special Collections and University Archives at Raynor Memorial Libraries began archiving Foley’s work.
“We said this is very special. This needs to be preserved,” said Katie Blank, university and digital records archivist at Marquette.
Foley’s death and the Foley Foundation
Foley filed reports from Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria. While working as a freelance journalist in Syria in 2012, he was captured and held hostage. Nearly two years later, the U.S. government verified a video of ISIS beheading Foley.
Durkin said he received a text message.
“I’m so sorry, Tom. And I knew it. That’s all the text said. And I turned on the TV,” said Durkin.
Within weeks, Foley’s friends and family, including his mother Diane Foley, launched the Foley Foundation. Their goals were, and remain, to bring home Americans captured overseas and improve safety for journalists.
“[Jim] thought what really made journalism was moral courage,” said Durkin. “And the way he defined moral courage was the ability to do what’s right, regardless of what the reprisals might be on your career.
The story behind the archive
After Foley’s death, Diane Foley gave Tom Durkin suitcases full of Foley’s things, including notebooks and something, Durkin said, that’s very special.
“I had this little, tiny office in our house. Probably overstuffed with stuff. Humidity, like whatever you could think of. And I had these papers, and I’m like, I can’t do this. I’m going to ruin them,” said Durkin.
They’re a collection of Foley’s writings from a prison in Libya, where he was detained for 44 days in 2011. He scrawled on whatever paper he could find in prison.
It was then that Durkin decided to reach out to Marquette. The archivists responded quickly.
“It’s hard when you think about your friend doing all this important stuff. And so when [Marquette archivists] were overwhelmed by it, I just told Diane, like, ‘they want this. They want to do this.’ And the first thing I said, of course, to Diane, was, ‘They’re good,’” said Durkin.
The archive launch
Preparing Foley’s collection will take time. Archive staff are tediously reviewing and storing 10 terabytes of digital material as well as physical items.
Katie Blank with Marquette said some of the archives will be available starting next year – online, as well as in person with special collections.
“It shows that Marquette recognizes the value of Jim as a person; recognizes the value of his work; and recognizes how his work and his life can help inform and encourage journalism, well, across the world,” said Blank.
The year of the launch, 2024, marks the tenth anniversary of Foley’s execution.
“I am just so deeply touched. I’m hoping that other young journalists and students can learn from Jim and be aspired by his aspiration to be a man of moral courage and make the world a better place,” said Diane Foley.
For Durkin, it’s all still a bit overwhelming. A bit hard to grasp, he said.
After all, to him, Foley was just a guy, a buddy to go on fun trips with or crack a couple of beers.
“It makes me so proud to say that this is my friend. That I knew Jim Foley. That he was somebody that I talked to. That I hung out with him. That I could call him. It just means so means a lot that this is happening,” said Durkin.
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