Central Ideas and Details

Many intellectual histories of the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s rely heavily on essays and other explicitly ideological works as primary sources, a tendency that can overrepresent the perspectives of a small number of thinkers, most of whom were male. Historian Ashley D. Farmer has shown that expanding the array of primary sources to encompass more types of print material—including political cartoons, advertisements, and artwork—leads to a much better understanding of the movement and the crucial and diverse roles that Black women played in shaping it.

Which choice best describes the main idea of the text?

• Before Farmer’s research, historians had largely ignored the intellectual dimensions of the Black Power movement.

• Farmer’s methods and research have enriched the historical understanding of the Black Power movement and Black women’s contributions to it.

• Other historians of the Black Power movement have criticized Farmer’s use of unconventional primary sources.

• The figures in the Black Power movement whom historians tend to cite would have agreed with Farmer’s conclusions about women’s roles in the movement.