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Malala Yousafzai was in Philadelphia on Tuesday night to accept WHYY’s Lifelong Learning Award. More than 300 people came to see her be interviewed live onstage by Terry Gross, co-host of WHYY’s “Fresh Air.”

Many conversations about Yousafzai return to the 2012 attack when a member of the Taliban shot her in the head on a school bus. She was 15 years old. That moment came up again during her conversation with Gross.

Yousafzai told Gross that she does not remember it.

“I don’t remember anything. I have different flashbacks, but I am never sure what I really saw,” Yousafzai said. “I asked my friend, ‘Did I scream? Did I say anything?’ And she said, ‘You just held my hand really tight. You were silent, you were looking at that person, but you were not saying anything. You just held my hand really tight that I could feel the pain for days.’”

After her recovery, Yousafzai became a fearless advocate for education, hammering home that 120 million girls worldwide lack access to education.

But seven years later, while studying at Oxford University, all the fear she had never remembered came crushing down, she said. Yousafzai started having debilitating panic attacks, reimagining the day she was shot over and over.

“It took me a few months, and then a friend of mine suggested that I start seeing a therapist,” she said. “I had never received therapy before.”

“You said that even in the Pashto language, there’s no word for anxiety,” Gross said. “I can’t imagine that.”

WHYY’s Lifelong Learning Award recognizes people with exemplary records of excellence who have a passion for lifelong learning in themselves and others. Beginning in 2002, the award has been given to figures such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, Kenny Gamble, Cokie Roberts and Dawn Staley.

“At a time of deep division, at least in this country, we remain here at WHYY committed to bringing people together despite their differences of opinion to foster dialogue,” said WHYY CEO Bill Marrazzo. “Malala reminds us that progress is not inevitable. It requires commitment. It requires investment, and it requires backbone and courage.”

Tuesday night’s conversation also touched on “Finding My Way,” Yousafzai’s latest book, an account of growing beyond being labeled “the bravest girl in the world.”

In her chat with Gross, Yousafzai opened up about staying true to her activist ideals and her cultural heritage while also navigating friendships, independence and love.

Now 28, Yousafazai is married, something she said she had been adamantly opposed to all her life.

“I hated marriage,” she said. “Even in college, I was telling my friends that I will never get married. I discouraged all of my friends from getting married.”

“I was the first one in my friend group to get married,” she said.

Yousafzai met her husband, Asser Malik, a Pakistani cricket team manager living in England, and bonded over their common love of sports. They were married in 2021. Last year, they founded Recess Capital, an investment initiative supporting gender equity in athletics.

“I think you’re really an inspiration for the work that you do, for the risk that you take,” Gross told Yousafzai. “But also believing in living a full life that welcomes joy and love and fun and sports, and being a full human being while participating in your activism.”

This was Yousafzai’s third visit to Philadelphia. Her first trip was in 2014, when she accepted the Liberty Medal at the National Constitution Center. Last October, she came on a book tour and made a stop at the Fillmore.

At the end of her chat with Gross, Yousafzai, who has never been to an Eagles game, had a message for Philadelphians.

“I just want to say one thing to Philly,” she said. “Go Birds.”