First Lady Michelle Obama delivered an authentic, unfeigned and inspiring message to graduates at Tuskegee University’s commencement on May 9. Here are excerpts:

The story of Tuskegee is full of men and women who seized their own futures, and wound up shaping the arc of history for African-Americans and all Americans.

And I’d like to begin today by reflecting on that history — starting at the time when the Army chose Tuskegee as the site of its airfield and flight school for black pilots.  

Back then, black soldiers faced all kinds of obstacles. There were the so-called scientific studies that said that black men’s brains were smaller than white men’s. Official Army reports stated that black soldiers were “childlike,” “shiftless,” “unmoral and untruthful,” and as one quote stated, “if fed, loyal and compliant.” 

So while the airmen selected for this program were actually highly educated — many already had college degrees and pilots licenses — they were presumed to be inferior. During training, they were often assigned to menial tasks like housekeeping or landscaping. Many suffered verbal abuse at the hands of their instructors. When they ventured off base, the white sheriff here called them “boy” and ticketed them for the most minor offenses. And when they deployed overseas, white soldiers often wouldn’t return their salutes.

You see, those airmen always understood that they had a “double duty” — one to their country and another to all the black folks who were counting on them to pave the way forward. For the airmen, the act of flying itself was a symbol of liberation for themselves and for all African-Americans. 

One of those first pilots, Charles DeBow, put it this way. He said that a takeoff was “a never-failing miracle” where all “the bumps would smooth off … [you’re] in the air … out of this world … free.” 

And when he was up in the sky, Charles sometimes looked down to see black folks in the cotton fields not far from here — the same fields where their ancestors (were) slaves. And he knew that he was taking to the skies for them — to give them and their children something more to aspire to.

In so many ways, that never-failing miracle — the constant work to rise above the bumps in our path to greater freedom for our brothers and sisters — has always been the story of African-Americans here at Tuskegee.  

I had my share of bumps along the way.

Back when my husband first started campaigning for president, folks had all sorts of questions: What kind of first lady would I be? What kinds of issues would I take on? Would I be more like Laura Bush, or Hillary Clinton or Nancy Reagan? Those same questions would have been posed to any candidate’s spouse. But as potentially the first African-American First Lady, I was also the focus of another set of questions and speculations — conversations sometimes rooted in the fears and misperceptions of others. Was I too loud, or too angry, or too emasculating? Or was I too soft, too much of a mom, not enough of a career woman? 

Then there was the first time I was on a magazine cover. It was a cartoon drawing of me with a huge afro and machine gun. Yeah, it was satire, but if I’m really being honest, it knocked me back a bit. It made me wonder just how are people seeing me.

Or you might remember the on-stage celebratory fist bump between me and my husband after a primary win that was referred to as a “terrorist fist jab.” Over the years, folks have used plenty of interesting words to describe me. One said I exhibited “a little bit of uppity-ism.” Another noted that I was one of my husband’s “cronies of color.” Cable news once charmingly referred to me as “Obama’s Baby Mama.”

And of course, Barack has endured his fair share of insults and slights. Even today, there are still folks questioning his citizenship. 

All of this used to really get to me. I had a lot of sleepless nights, worrying about what people thought of me, wondering if I might be hurting my husband’s chances of winning his election, fearing how my girls would feel if they found out what some people were saying about their mom.

Eventually, I realized that if I wanted to keep my sanity and not let others define me, there was only one thing I could do. And that was to have faith in God’s plan for me. I had to ignore all of the noise and be true to myself — and the rest would work itself out.  

So, graduates, that’s what I want for all of you. I want you all to stay true to the most real, most sincere, most authentic parts of yourselves. I want you to ask those basic questions: Who do you want to be? What inspires you? How do you want to give back? And then I want you to take a deep breath and trust yourselves to chart your own course and make your mark on the world. 

The road ahead is not going to be easy. There will be times, just like for those airmen, when you feel like folks look right past you, or they see just a fraction of who you really are. 

The world won’t always see you in those caps and gowns. They won’t know how hard you worked and how much you sacrificed to make it to this day — the countless hours you spent studying to get this diploma, the multiple jobs you worked to pay for school, the times you had to drive home and take care of your grandma, the evenings you gave up to volunteer at a food bank or organize a campus fundraiser.

Instead, they will make assumptions about who they think you are based on their limited notion of the world. My husband and I know how frustrating that experience can be. We’ve both felt the sting of those daily slights throughout our entire lives — the folks who crossed the street in fear of their safety; the clerks who kept a close eye on us in all those department stores; the people at formal events who assumed we were the “help” — and those who have questioned our intelligence, our honesty, even our love of this country. 

I know that these little indignities are nothing compared to what folks across the country are dealing with every single day — those nagging worries that you’re going to get stopped or pulled over for absolutely no reason; the fear that your job application will be overlooked because of the way your name sounds; the agony of sending your kids to schools that may no longer be separate, but are far from equal; the realization that no matter how far you rise in life, how hard you work to be a good person, a good parent, a good citizen — for some folks, it will never be enough.

And all of that is going to be a heavy burden to carry. It can feel isolating. It can make you feel like your life somehow doesn’t matter — that you’re like the invisible man that Tuskegee grad Ralph Ellison wrote about. Those feelings are real. They’re rooted in decades of structural challenges that have made too many folks feel frustrated and invisible. And those feelings are playing out in communities like Baltimore and Ferguson and so many others across this country.

We need you to channel the magic of Tuskegee toward the challenges of today. Even if you’re nervous or unsure about what path to take in the years ahead, I want you to realize that you’ve got everything you need right now to succeed.

And if you rise above the noise and pressures that surround you, if you stay true to who you are and where you come from, if you have faith in God’s plan for you, then you will keep fulfilling your duty to people all across this country. And as the years pass, you’ll feel the same freedom that Charles DeBow did when he was taking off in that airplane. You will feel the bumps smooth off. You’ll take part in that “never-failing miracle” of progress. And you’ll be flying through the air, out of this world — free.

God bless you, graduates. I can’t wait to see how high you soar.