Michelle Obama delivered the commencement address to the graduating class of Bowie State University today.

Bowie State, located about 30 minutes by car outside of D.C., is a part of the University of Maryland system and a historically black university, the oldest in the state. This aspect of the small school’s history was a focus of the first lady’s speech.

“For generations, in many parts of this country, it was illegal for black people to get an education,” she said. “Slaves caught reading or writing could be beaten to within an inch of their lives. Anyone—black or white—who dared to teach them could be fined or thrown into jail,” the first lady said. “And yet, just two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, this school was founded not just to educate African Americans, but to teach them how to educate others. It was in many ways an act of defiance, an eloquent rebuttal to the idea that black people couldn’t or shouldn’t be educated.”

Obama went on to lament that some “young people just can’t be bothered” to get an education. “Today, instead of walking miles every day to school, they’re sitting on couches for hours playing video games, watching TV. Instead of dreaming of being a teacher or a lawyer or a business leader, they’re fantasizing about being a baller or a rapper,” she said. “Right now, one in three African American students are dropping out of high school. Only one in five African Americans between the ages of 25 and 29 has gotten a college degree—one in five. But let’s be very clear. Today, getting an education is as important if not more important than it was back when this university was founded.”

Bowie State also presented Obama with an honorary doctorate of laws.

Watch video of the commencement speech, via WJLA, below.