Bayamo City is full of bootblacks. You walk down the boulevard and find every step of the way many of these men who shine shoes.
Curiosities
In train stations and buses in big cities like New York, Paris and Rome you can see permanent shoeshine stands to which clients come before or after traveling. In other cities like Istanbul their boxes are true works of art of the goldsmith which are by themselves tourist attractions.
Prominent characters were at some stage of their lives bootblacks:
Ozzy Osbourne, English Heavy Metal singer.
Mahmoud Ahmed, Ethiopian singer.
James Brown. “The Godfather of Soul”, used to polish shoes, sing and dance on Ninth Avenue in Augusta, Georgia; in 1993, the road was renamed James Brown Boulevard in his honor.
José Asunción Flores, composer and creator of the musical genre called guarnía
Oscar Micheaux, the first African American filmmaker.
Dick Rowland, worked as a shoeshine boy until his arrest for his involvement in riots in Tulsa.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, former President of Brazil.
Alejandro Toledo, President of Peru.
Lee Trevino, a professional golfer.
Malcolm X, worked as a shoeshine boy in the Lindy Hop nightclub, in New York
And of course, Scrooge Mc Duck, Disney cartoon character who was famous for winning his first coin working as a shoeshine boy.
At the movies:
The most famous in Latin America was Cantinflas Raquel’s Bolero in 1956.
Confessions of a Wall Street Shoeshine Boy, Doug Stumpf’s novel adapted for the screen.
Chattanoogie Shoe Shine Boy, a song performed by Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra.tros
Shoe Shine Boy, 1943 musical film.
Shoeshine, 1946 Italian film that was awarded by the Academy Awards in 1948.
Underdog, animated television series in which a dog protects his secret identity working as a bootblack.
