Examines racial politics in Brazil by analyzing the city of Salvador da Bahia's cultural policies over time and their relationship to national ideology and racial identity in Brazil more generally. It argues that the re-Africanization of Salvador's Carnival and its historical center, the Pelourinho, although initially products of the mobilization of Afro-Bahians themselves, have become institutionalized and ironically serve today as testaments to Brazil's diversity, tolerance, and integration.
