In the early twentieth century, Brazil shifted from a nation intent on whitening its population to one billing itself as a racial democracy. Anadelia Romo shows that this shift centered in Salvador, Bahia, where throughout the 1950s, modernist artists and intellectuals forged critical alliances with Afro-Brazilian religious communities of Candomblé to promote their culture and their city. These efforts combined with a growing promotion of tourism to transform what had been one of the busiest slaving depots in the Americas into a popular tourist enclave celebrated for its rich Afro-Brazilian culture. Vibrant illustrations and texts by the likes of Jorge Amado, Pierre Verger, and others contributed to a distinctive iconography of the city, with Afro-Bahians at its center. But these optimistic visions of inclusion, Romo reveals, concealed deep racial inequalities. Illustrating how these visual archetypes laid the foundation for Salvador’s modern racial landscape, this book unveils the ways ethnic and racial populations have been both included and excluded not only in Brazil but in Latin America as a whole.

Preface
Glossary

Introduction: Race, Identity, and Visual Culture in the Americas
Chapter 1. Precedents and Backdrops: Racial Types and Modern Ports
Chapter 2. Colonial Churches and the Rise of the Quintessential Black City: Modernism, Travel, and the Pathbreaking Guide of Jorge Amado
Chapter 3. Pierre Verger and the Construction of a Black Folk, 1946–1951
Chapter 4. Festive Streets: Carybé and Bahian Modernism
Chapter 5. “Human and Picturesque”: Consolidation in the Bahian Tourist Guides of the 1950s
Chapter 6. All Roads Lead to Black Rome: How the Religion of “Secrets” Became a Tourist Attraction
Epilogue

Acknowledgments
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index