CHICAGO (AP) – First lady Michelle Obama drew on her hometown connections and personal struggles from college and the White House Tuesday during a Chicago high school graduation speech to the classmates of an honor student gunned down in 2013 near the Obama family home.
A boisterous crowd of thousands attended commencement for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. College Preparatory High School, a school that garnered headlines when 15-year-old honor student Hadiya Pendleton was fatally shot on the way home from class. Days earlier she had been in Washington, D.C., to perform with her drill team during President Barack Obama’s second term inauguration festivities.
Pendleton would have graduated Tuesday. A chair – draped in purple fabric, her favorite color; a feather boa; and a bouquet of flowers – was reserved in her honor among her cap-and-gown-clad classmates.
“Hadiya’s memory is truly a blessing and an inspiration to me and my husband, and to people across this country and around the world,” Obama said, according to a copy of prepared remarks. She went on to say, “I know that many of you are thinking about Hadiya right now and feeling the hole that she left in your hearts.”
The first lady, who attended Pendleton’s funeral in 2013, told students she understood the issues they faced because she had experienced some firsthand growing up in the nation’s third-largest city.