The correct answer to this open question is the following.
Unfortunately, you forgot to include the name of the author, the text, excerpt, or any other reference that could help us to help you.
Furthermore, you also forgot to include the options for this question,
However, trying to offer some help, we did deep research and can comment on the following.
The author supports the idea that people wanted to believe African slaves in the south used a secret code "by showing that the history of the quilt code wasn't known before the 1990s, and then it became a popular topic."
We are referring to the History article called "The Slave Quilt Code. Fact or Fiction?" written by Ron Fridell.
In the article, the author says that after the 1990s, American people started to believe that African American slaves developed a secret code to escape to the northern states to be free. But historians have not found yet a real or valid historic support that confirms the assumption.