Barbara Gothard — an artist whose work depicts the plight of 23 African American homesteaders during the early 20th century — will deliver a talk this week at the Victor Valley Museum.

Gothard’s exhibit, “Contradictions — Bringing the Past Forward,” has been featured at the museum since May. The installation consists of digital paintings printed on raw linen canvas.

Each canvas represents a Black homesteader who toiled in the Lanfair Valley, a remote area near the California-Nevada border, now bordered within the Mojave National Preserve.

The event will start at 1 p.m. Saturday, July 30, at the museum at 11873 Apple Valley Road in Apple Valley.

Gothard said she will discuss what led her to the project, explain the conceptual process of developing the artwork and provide general background information about African American homesteading.

The artist said she hopes attendees will “learn and become familiar with the fact that these African American homesteaders did exist because their stories are untold up until recently.”

David Nichols, park archaeologist for the Mojave National Preserve, will also be on hand to “provide insight on some of the objects discovered in the Mojave Desert” where the Black homesteaders once lived, San Bernardino County officials said.

Gothard’s initial inspiration came from a 1910 Los Angeles newspaper article that highlighted an interesting advertisement. The ad’s headline read, “An Appeal to Colored Men.”

The ad was posted by a mining company owned by African Americans who wished to recruit people to Lanfair and two other Mojave valleys that had opened to homesteading.

Under the homesteading federal acts first adopted in 1862, a person could earn rights to 160 acres or more of land if they met certain conditions, such as cultivating a certain number of acres and living on the land for three years.

Some of the African Americans who applied and settled in Lanfair were former slaves and at least one had served in the Union Army.

Gothard said homesteading in the arid, remote region was a way for Black homesteaders to escape Civil War-postbellum areas where racism and acts of violence were rampant.

Though life was tough in the desert with little water, every African American who moved to the valley earned their deeds, or patents, to land.

This achievement was considered “remarkable” by Mojave Desert researcher Dennis Casebier — who unearthed records and cast light on the histories of the families — considering only about 40% of homesteaders nationwide ultimately obtained a title before the program ended.

In addition to illuminating the homesteaders’ history, Gothard said she hopes to "encourage young people in particular to know that you can actually learn about history and humanities through art.”

“It’s important that people know the history about the area in which they lived and this is very much the history of the Mojave desert,” she said.

Daily Press reporter Martin Estacio may be reached at 760-955-5358 or MEstacio@VVDailyPress.com. Follow him on Twitter @DP_mestacio.