Michelle Obama talks 'sleepless nights' during first election, experiencing daily 'slights' of racism

First Lady Michelle Obama gave a commencement address at Tuskegee University on Saturday and opened up about racism and her own personal setbacks as a result of it.

Both Obama and Tuskegee University will play a role in black history, with the former serving as the first African American First Lady and the latter the first historic university to accept black pilots in Word War II.

She noted of her husband, President Obama’s first election campaign that they both experienced “slights” of racism.

She warned to the mostly African American graduating class of the tough “road ahead” because “those age-old problems are stubborn and they haven’t fully gone away.”

Washington Post reports she went on to admit she had a lot of “sleepless nights” focusing on what the public was saying about her during the election.

“Was I too loud, or too angry, or too emasculating?” she asked. “Or was I too soft, too much of a mom, not enough of a career woman?"

She continued, “Throughout this journey, I have learned to block everything out and focus on my truth. I had to answer some basic questions for myself: Who am I? No, really, who am I? What do I care about? And the answers to those questions have resulted in the woman who stands before you today."

During the speech, she also brought up recent protests in Ferguson and Baltimore, noting feelings of racism can feel “isolating,” adding, “It can make you feel like your life somehow doesn’t matter.”

image via William T Wade Jr/ACE/INFphoto.com

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