JOHANNESBURG ? Michelle Obama on Wednesday told young African leaders, including members of South Africa's post-apartheid generation, that there are more causes worth fighting for and more history to be made. She urged them to be the ones who end hunger, wipe out HIV/AIDS and protect women's rights.
In an emotionally stirring speech at a church that became a popular refuge during the fight against government-imposed segregation in South Africa, America's first lady drew on the struggle for racial equality in the U.S. and in this country as she sought to inspire young people to become the next generation of problem-solvers.
"I know that as your generation looks back on that struggle and on the many liberation movements of the past century, you may think that all the great moral struggles have already been won," Mrs. Obama said in a keynote address to a U.S.-sponsored leadership conference for more than 70 young African women. "But while today's challenges might not always inspire the lofty rhetoric and high drama of struggles past, the injustices at hand are no less glaring. The human suffering is no less acute.
"So make no mistake about it: There are still so many causes worth sacrificing for. There is still so much history yet to be made," she said.
Sixty percent of Africa's population is under age 25 and two-thirds of South Africans are younger than 30, Mrs. Obama said.
The first lady said this generation can be the one that brings prosperity to forgotten corners of the world, banishes hunger from Africa and ends HIV/AIDS and the stigma associated with it. She said they can ensure that women are no longer treated as second-class citizens, that girls get an education and that any type of violence against women is seen as a violation of human rights.
"That is the history that your generation can make," Mrs. Obama said.
She received an effusive introduction from Graca Machel, the wife of former South African President Nelson Mandela, who said Mrs. Obama is the "queen of our world."
That welcome, which included music from a choir whose members wore colorful Zulu hats, was so rousing that Mrs. Obama was visibly moved by the time she got to the microphone. She shook her head as if in disbelief, crossed her arms over her chest and thanked the audience of 2,000 for that "almost overwhelming" introduction. A large television screen aired the speech to dozens more gathered in a nearby park.
In her remarks, Mrs. Obama told Africa's youth to reject the "false comfort" that they shouldn't be concerned about the suffering of others and to not get impatient over the slow pace of change. She told them to not underestimate their power to make a difference and suggested that they think of one another's accomplishments when self-doubt starts to creep in.
She said she was thinking about the young activists who met at the American Library in Soweto during the apartheid era to read Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches and about students on U.S. college campuses, including her future husband, who planned boycotts to support students in South Africa.
Nearly 50 years after the victories of the U.S. civil rights movement, Mrs. Obama said, "We still struggle every day to perfect our union and live up to our ideals. And every day, it is our young people who are leading the way" by joining the military, teaching in struggling schools and volunteering countless hours in their communities.
"Today, I want you to know that as you seek to lift up your families, your communities, your countries and our world, you are never alone," she said.
Mrs. Obama delivered her 30-minute address at the Regina Mundi Church in the black township of Soweto. The church became more than a religious sanctuary 35 years ago, in June 1976, when police fired upon thousands of students who were peacefully protesting the government's decision to require them to begin studying in Afrikaans, the language of the country's Dutch settlers.
Students fled into the church but police followed, with tear gas and bullets. No one was killed inside Regina Mundi, but hundreds did die that day, including a 13-year-old school boy named Hector Pieterson, who became a symbol of the Soweto uprisings.
After the speech, Mrs. Obama helped lay flowers at a memorial to Pieterson near to where he was shot. She also toured an adjacent museum that tells his story. Mrs. Obama was accompanied by Pieterson's sister, Antoinette Sithole, who is seen running alongside the man carrying her brother's lifeless body in a famous photograph from that time.
She also dropped in on group sessions involving participants from the leadership conference, and later helped pull up carrots and plant spinach in a garden at a U.S.-funded community center in Soweto that feeds and provides services to 300 children. She arrived in Cape Town on Wednesday night.
Mrs. Obama is halfway through a weeklong goodwill mission to South Africa and Botswana, and is promoting youth leadership, education, health and wellness, and closer relations with Africa. She also is steeping herself and her family in South Africa's racist past.
The first lady is on her second international trip without the president, but for company she brought along her two daughters, Malia, 12, and Sasha, 10; her mother, Marian Robinson, and a niece and nephew, Leslie and Avery Robinson, 15 and 19, respectively. They are the children of her brother, Craig.
Her schedule Thursday included a ferry ride to Robben Island, where Mandela spent 18 of his 27 years in prison for leading the anti-apartheid movement; a meeting with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, another leading apartheid opponent; and a discussion with disadvantaged students who are spending the day at the University of Cape Town.
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