Michelle Obama on success, the power of education, and clinching your dreams 206 When Nina Simone hollered “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, she was rallying the cry for black pride and Civil Rights during a very turbulent period in American history. Little would have Simone realised that about a thousand miles away in Chicago, Illinois, a six-year-old Michelle Obama was living her early life, unaware that she would someday be the first African-American First Lady of the USA. A role model and inspiration to millions of girls around the world, Michelle too had to jostle with discrimination – both racial and gender – while making her way up the world.