Black Men of Measure: Stories of Skilled Labor, Creativity, and Community is a work-in-progress by Chicago native and Philadelphia-based photographer and writer Tieshka K. Smith. This project blends oral history and archival inquiry to tell the story of her father’s life as a Black Baby Boomer man and Chicago native. He grew up in LeClaire Courts, graduated from Dunbar Vocational High School, and went on to become a skilled train mechanic for the Chicago Transit Authority and a member of the Amalgamated Transit Union. He is also a Vietnam veteran and a Chicago State University alumnus, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration with honors.

Beyond his professional life, he has engaged in photography, urban gardening, and entrepreneurship, while raising a family and supporting extended family members, friends, and colleagues. Her father represents a generation of Black men in Chicago and beyond whose lives reflect skill, education, civic engagement, and creativity, yet whose stories are often underrepresented.

Working on this project while based in Philadelphia, while focusing on her father back home in Chicago, has created a bridge across geographic, generational, and emotional distance. It becomes both a personal and public effort to honor lineage, preserve memory, and trace how family histories move across places and time. In doing so, the work functions as a living archive that invites broader recognition of these narratives beyond their immediate context.

ISBN: 979-8-90148-042-7 (Paperback, forthcoming December 2027)