Dancing 106-year-old says she can ‘die happy’ after ecstatic meeting with Obama

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Virgina McLaurin could not contain here excitement upon meeting US President Barack Obama and Fist Lady Michelle Obama at the White House last week. Photo: White House

Published: 10:34am, 23 Feb 2016Updated: 11:41am, 23 Feb 2016

At 106 years old, she’s seen more than a dozen presidents come and go, but Virginia McLaurin says she can finally die happy after meeting President Barack Obama.

Video of the centenarian dancing with excitement quickly went viral on the Internet after last week’s Black History Month reception at the White House. The grandmother said that when she saw the president and first lady Michelle Obama in the flesh, “I was so happy, I started dancing.”

WATCH: Virgina McLaurin meets the Obamas

“I’ve come a long ways, a long ways,” McLaurin said in an interview outside her Washington home. “I just didn’t think I’d ever live to go this far in the world.”

Virgina McLaurin said she never though she would see the day when the United States had a black president. Photo: White House

For McLaurin, who said she was born in South Carolina in 1909, the White House invitation was a long time in the making. It’s been more than a year since she started a White House petition asking to meet the president — and offering to come to his house to make it easier.

“I didn’t think I’d ever live to see a coloured president,” McLaurin, who is black, said in a YouTube video accompanying the petition.

Her petition didn’t garner enough signatures to meet the White House threshold for an official response, but it didn’t keep her from securing an invitation to Thursday’s reception, where Obama reflected on the legacy of US slavery and called America “a constant work in progress.”