(CNN) Michelle Obama gave an impassioned and personal commencement speech Saturday on the trials she's faced as the first African-American first lady of the United States, saying she was held to a different standard than other candidates' wives during the 2008 campaign because of her race.

Speaking at Tuskegee University in Alabama, Obama told the audience that when her husband was running for office in 2008, she faced questions which she said were not typical for other candidates' wives.

"As potentially the first African-American first lady, I was also the focus of another set of questions and speculations, conversations sometimes rooted in the fears and misperceptions of others," she told the class of 2015. "Was I too loud or too emasculating? Or was I too soft? Too much of a mom and not enough of a career woman?"

Obama referenced the cover of the July 2008 issue of The New Yorker, in which Obama was depicted with her husband as terrorist enemies of the United States.

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"Then there was the first time I was on a magazine cover. It was a cartoon drawing of me with a huge afro and a machine gun. Now, yeah, it was satire, but if I'm really being honest, it knocked me back a bit. It made me wonder 'just how are people seeing me?'"

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