Michelle Obama in Spotlight at Democratic Party Convention

As delegates poured into Denver, Colorado for four days leading up to the historic moment of Barack Obama's formal nomination August 28, his wife, Michelle Obama, will take center stage tonight at the Democratic National Convention for a prime-time speech introducing herself as a potential first lady. Her solo appearance tonight will be her first address to a broad audience of voters and it's a chance for her to help frame her husband's biography.

The speech will be a family affair. Marian Robinson, Michelle's mother, will narrate a video about the next potential first family, and Michelle will be introduced by her brother, Craig, head basketball coach at Oregon State University in Corvallis.

The speech will be peppered with stories about the couple and their two daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, but it will mostly be a humanizing portrait of her husband. ``You will have a sense of who she is and what our values are and how we are raising our kids, and I think what you will conclude is `gee, he's sort of like us,''' Senator Obama told voters yesterday in Wisconsin. The address also is a reintroduction for Michelle Obama, 44, who had been the object of criticism for some of her remarks during the primary.

Critics seized on comments she made in February when she said her husband's candidacy made her feel proud of her country ``for the first time in my adult lifetime.'' She later said she had been trying to say how proud she was that so many people were engaging in the political process as a result of her husband's candidacy, and that she had always been proud of her country. Michelle Obama has softened her image by appearing on television programs such as ``The View.'' Going into this week's convention, she is on the covers of Essence and Ebony magazines.

But what if, deep down inside somewhere, Michelle Obama really is angry. What's wrong with a little anger? Black women have a lot of reasons to feel that way, and she, especially, for some of the things that have been said about her and her husband. Maybe this Princeton and Harvard-educated lawyer is angry about Fox News Channel calling her in an on-screen graphic, "Obama's baby mama." (And why are the Reverends Jackson and Sharpton not forming a boycott of the Fox News Channel and their sponsors.) She could be spitting mad about the rumor that there was a video of her railing against "whitey" from the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. No video has surfaced; the campaign says that's because she never spoke there.

Her speech will serve two purposes; one is to reintroduce herself to the country and to the world because she has never had a larger audience. Secondly her task is to introduce her husband to the audience in a way in which she knows him and we don't. Tonight she breaks ground as she auditions for the role of the first Black first lady of the U.S.

``There haven't been [many] opportunities for Black women to be revered in a way of being referred to as first lady of a city, a state or as a nation,'' said Wellington Webb, Denver's first Black mayor. Such a step would be ``very significant given our history.''

Too often, the media depict Black women as gyrating hoochie mamas, someone's baby mama or dirty crack addicts. Michelle Obama strikes a pose not seen enough: an accomplished, confident, proud Black woman. That seems to scare some people. It is said that people are most afraid of what they are least familiar with. And most people don't really know Michelle Obama. Like most politicians, and their families, we know only what we read about her or see on TV.

Senator Barack Obama's advisers viewed her as his "secret weapon." In the primaries, she was dubbed "the Closer" for her ability to persuade undecided voters to come on board. Now she's the opener, the first-night star called upon to testify about her husband's vision and values, and perhaps settle some doubts about herself.

"People aren't used to strong women," Michelle Obama said when her image came up as she played guest co-host on "The View." America likes a certain type of first lady, the adoring, smiling, know-your-place-and-stay-in-it kind who stands beside her man. They want career political wives, not career women.

Don't get me wrong; I like soft. Who doesn't? It helps make women who they are, but it's just one side of who women are. And Michelle Obama has shown plenty of "soft" already; go watch the family's much-talked about interview with "Access Hollywood," or read her recent interview with Ebony magazine.

Michelle LaVaughn Robinson grew up on the South Side of Chicago in a family of modest means. Fraser Robinson was a local Democratic organizer who worked at a water plant. His wife Marian raised the kids in a one-bedroom apartment on the top floor of her aunt's house, where Michelle and Craig slept in the living room, converted into two tiny bedrooms and a study area.

She fought her way into Princeton, and later to Harvard Law School, and began dating Barack Obama while working at a Chicago corporate law firm. They've been married for 15 years.

She's proved an adept solo campaigner with blue-collar audiences and with women, able to make a connection with voters whose lives are an economic struggle.

"I wake up every morning, wondering how on the Earth I'm going to pull off that next minor miracle to get through the day," she told a Chicago crowd. She talks about work, workouts, parent-teacher conferences, hair appointments, the burdens of campaign travel, the plugged toilet that her husband left her to deal with one day.

"With the exception of the campaign trail and life in the public eye, I have to say that my life now is really not that much different from many of yours," she said.

By all accounts, she has a great husband — who has made history and could make more if he is elected on Nov. 4 — two charming daughters, a power career as a hospital administrator, a million-dollar home in Chicago's Hyde Park. She's also a role model for little girls everywhere, especially those of color, who have been beaten down by poverty, broken homes, failing schools, low self-esteem and every other obstacle life can put in their way.

Think of those girls (and boys too) and how it could help them to see someone like Michelle Obama, strong, self-assured, devoted to family, triumphant over some of those same issues in her own life and possibly headed to the White House, and think to themselves, "Yes, I can."