Michelle Obama Attends Slain Chicago Teen’s Funeral

First Lady Michelle Obama was one of many dignitaries and one of thousands of mourners who showed up to mourn the loss of Hadiya Pendleton, a Chicago high school student who performed at President Barack Obama’s inauguration with her school’s band.

Pendleton, who was a majorette at Kings College Prep High School in Chicago, was shot on Jan. 29 while sitting with friends in a park not more than a mile from the Obama’s Chicago residence. It was a horrific instance, not unlike many that have plagued the country’s second largest city, which has seen the loss of many innocent lives as a result of gang violence.

Many spoke at the slain 15-year-old’s funeral, including friends, family and well-known names from the Chicago area. Those who knew her spoke of the lasting impression her life has left upon them; those who didn’t spoke of the impression her death has made in encouraging those around the country to heed the call for a change in the nation's gun policies. Though all were careful to not make the lost child’s death a matter of politics, there was the common sense that “her life has not been in vain,” said Pastor Elder Eric Thomas.

The First Lady’s presence drew media attention to the premature death of Pendleton by gun violence, as she both showed her support for the Pendleton family and her husband’s efforts to pass new gun legislation. “I think that represents the feeling that the president and the first lady both have about what happened to her and the tragedy that it represents both in real concrete terms to her family but also symbolically because of the tragedy of gun violence that our country has to deal with all too often,” White House press secretary Jay Carney told The New York Times.

—Chelsea Regan

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Watch Hadiya's mother, Cleopatra Pendleton, speaking at her daughter's funeral below: