White stuntmen in blackface!
I saw a short about the making of this film that had behind-the-scenes things like Hayes doing the music and the bar scene of Shaft hitting the gangster over the head with a bottle. They showed the scene where the gangsters kill Ben Buford's men. I was surprised to see that the stuntmen in that scene were mostly white men wearing blackface make-up and afro wigs. I guess since there hadn't been too many action movies with black leads in those days that they couldn't find many black stuntmen to be in it.
Yippee: "For king!"
Yappee: "For country!"
Yahooie: "And, most of all, for 10ยข an hour!"