In one of the most vulnerable moments of her Spelman address, Obama shared her own experience with self-doubt. She described growing up in a neighborhood where few had the chance to go to college, where being teased for doing well in school was a fact of life, and where well-meaning but misguided people questioned whether a girl with her background could get into a school like Princeton. What made this admission so powerful was its specificity — the First Lady of the United States confessing to lying awake at night, internalizing the doubts others placed on her, and questioning herself before anyone else had the chance to. She told graduates that there will always be people who make assumptions and try to cut others down, but urged them to respond by remembering the legacy of the women who came before them and persevered against far greater obstacles.