Joy Lived Here: Yasuhiro Ishimoto Captures Extraordinary Black Life in 1950 Chicago
Joy Lived Here is a project committed to surfacing historic images of Black joy—images that prove we were always more than the struggles that defined our headlines. More than pain. More than protest. We were joy. We are joy.
This entry features the work of Yasuhiro Ishimoto, a Japanese American photographer whose life—marked by internment, migration, and cultural duality—offered him a lens unlike any other. In the early 1950s, Ishimoto turned his camera toward the streets of Chicago’s South Side, capturing moments of everyday life that remain profoundly resonant today.
Among these images are Black children playing, walking, sweeping, or simply being—tender snapshots of existence that echo across time. One child leans in toward a door labeled “The Open Door,” under the watchful painting of an angel. Another image places us at the edge of a neighborhood sidewalk, where a boy in suspenders meets our gaze directly, another child turned away with a broom in hand.
These are not images of struggle, although struggle existed all around them.
About “Joy Lived Here”
Joy Lived Here is a new weekly series from Black Men Smile that brings to light historic photographs of everyday Black joy—images often overlooked, lost to time, or buried beneath headlines of struggle. Each entry offers context, story, and reverence, showing how Black joy has always existed, not in spite of history, but right alongside it.
It’s an act of remembrance.
It’s a tribute to those who came before us.
And it’s a reminder that joy itself is revolutionary.
You can follow the series weekly here on our blog or on Instagram @blackmensmile, where we continue to honor the beauty, complexity, and brilliance of our people—past and present.
Because joy lived here.
And it still does.