Michelle Obama makes official visit to South Africa

First Lady Michelle Obama arrived in South Africa on Monday night as she launched an official visit that will see her embrace this nation’s elders as she tries to inspire its young.

Obama, who is spending the week in South Africa and neighboring Botswana, will give a keynote speech to young African female leaders Wednesday in Johannesburg.

She is scheduled to meet with Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 79, but no meeting is currently scheduled with Nelson Mandela, 92, the country’s first black president. She also is scheduled to visit Robben Island, where Mandela was held for the majority of the 27 years he was in detention for fighting apartheid.

The first lady also aims to inspire South African youth, some too young to remember when segregation was inscribed into law and police used tear gas, dogs and bullets against those who fought to undo it.

She is scheduled to speak Thursday to young people from impoverished neighborhoods during an “immersion day” at the University of Cape Town. Her trip also will spotlight the continuing devastation that AIDS has wrought in Africa.

Africa is Obama’s second official overseas trip without the president, coming after a trip she made in April 2010 to Haiti and Mexico.

She was met by U.S. Ambassador Donald Gips and South African dignitaries at a military air base in Pretoria. Traveling with her are her mother, Marian Robinson; daughters Malia, 12, and Sasha, 10; nephew Avery Robinson, 19; and niece Leslie Robinson, 15, both of Corvallis, Ore. They are the children of her brother, Craig Robinson.

It’s Michelle Obama’s fourth trip to Africa after a 2009 trip to Ghana with the president; a 2006 trip with then-U.S. Sen. Obama to Kenya, where his father was born; and an earlier trip to Kenya before the Obamas married.

kskiba@tribune.com