Michelle Obama reminded the memory of South African schoolchildren who struggle apartheid, saying their fight had assured the liberty that permitted her, a black woman, to be First Lady of the US.
Mrs. Obama hailed the courage of those children, who were assaulted by armed disturbance police when they marched in demonstrate at being trained in Afrikaans in 1976.
"That is the heritage of the sovereign generation, the freedom generation. And all of you, the younger generation of today, are the successor of that blood, sweat, give up and love.
"So the query today is, what will you make of that legacy? What heritage will you leave for your children and afterward generation?" she inquired of a cheering crowd of many thousand people grouped in Soweto's Regina Mundi Church, which performed as an asylum to several demonstrators.
Mrs. Obama is on the second day of a three-day visit to South Africa where she is looking to enlarge her youth and women rights agenda. On Tuesday, she along with daughters Sasha and Malia and mother Marian Robinson visited the country's 92-year-old past president, Nelson Mandela.
On Thursday, she will journey to Cape Town where she will trip Robben Island, where Mr. Mandela was locked up for 18 of his 27 years of jail punishment. She will later meet Archbishop Desmond Tutu and township schoolchildren at the Greenpoint football stadium where several World Cup matches were took place in previous June.
Today, she delivered speech an assembly of some of Africa's most powerful and impressive women from charities, governments, the media, culture, sports and arts. Pioneering her was Nelson Mandela's wife, who explained her as "Queen of the World".
Mrs Obama said she had selected to visit Africa since it was a "primary part of our interlinked world", a continent where all of the world's largest skirmishes, against disease, poverty, unemployment and environment change, were at their most intense.
"You may not always have a calm life and you will not forever be able to resolve all of the world's problems at once but don't ever misjudge the importance you can have because history has shown us that bravery can be catching and hope can take on a life of its own," she said.
The 47-year-old First Lady said that following "lions" from the South Africa's fight history such as Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Albert Luthuli might look intimidating, but added: "There are still many reasons worth giving up for, too much history yet to be made."
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