“She called me into her office and explained to me why I wasn’t qualified to be there,” Ms. Thomas remembered. “I tell that story to young girls, who need to know that people are going to judge you, but they are going to misjudge you.”

That, in turn, reminded the women of a time when Ms. Abrams was invited to the governor’s mansion as one of many high school valedictorians, only to be stopped by a guard who didn’t believe she was a guest.

They relished what Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper, a professor of English at Spelman College, called Mrs. Obama’s “sassiness” in the book — an outspokenness that the first lady held in check after early criticism of her as angry or abrasive.

“Do you think her honesty increased because of the things said by the person who now occupies the White House?” Professor Harper asked the room of women, who deliberately avoided mentioning President Trump by name. When one referred to the “gentleman in the White House,” the otherwise decorous group hooted.

Ms. Smith and her friends, some of whom were also reading “Becoming” in their book clubs, welcomed an unleashed Mrs. Obama as well. But they said they struggled, as she did, with the stigma of caricature.

“There are these extra steps that we as black women have to go through to make sure we’re not appearing angry, aggressive, mean, nasty, insubordinate,” said Alexis Watt, who works as a communications and social media consultant. “We have this stereotype that black women are angry, but we have every right to be angry.”

Both generations of women who spoke in interviews said they were fighting despair at the contrast between the Trump White House and the barrier-breaking Obama White House.