Virginia McLaurin
Virginia McLaurin (born March 12, 1909) is an American community volunteer and supercentenarian. A resident of Washington, D.C., she gained national attention after a video of her dancing with President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama went viral, recorded during an invited visit to the White House to be awarded a service medal on February 18, 2016 during annual Black History Month. Biography. Virginia McLaurin was born in Cheraw, South Carolina on March 12, 1909. According to McLaurin, she "was birthed by a midwife and the birthday put in a Bible somewhere." In her childhood, she worked  in the fields with her parents, shucking corn and picking cotton. She grew up during the Jim Crow era when racial segregation was rampant throughout the Southern United States. Never receiving an education past third grade, McLaurin got married at 13 and later moved to New Jersey as part of the Great Migration. Widowed when her husband was killed in a bar fight, she moved to Washington D.C. to be closer to her sister in 1939. She worked as a seamstress, as a domestic helper for families in Silver Spring, Maryland, and managed a laundry shop. Through AmeriCorps Seniors, McLaurin  has volunteered forty hours per week at Roots Public Charter School since the early 1980s. In 2013, she received a volunteer community service award from Mayor Vincent C. Gray. After a TV crew publicized the fact that her apartment was infested with bed bugs in 2014, a local pest control company got rid of the infestation and gave her a free bed. Towards the end of the Obama administration, friends of McLaurin recommended to members of the Obama administration that she meet with the President due to her extensive history of volunteering. In February 2016, the White House hosted McLaurin  in celebration of Black History Month. Upon meeting the President and First Lady Michelle Obama, McLaurin gave them both hugs and started dancing with them. She would later say in interviews that she never felt that she would ever live to visit the White House, and she never thought there would ever be a day she would get to meet a Black President with his Black wife while celebrating Black history. Shortly after her meeting with the Obamas, the video of her dancing with the two went viral online. According to the local press, she has since been referred to  as D.C.'s favorite centenarian and Grandma Virginia. On March 11, 2016, McLaurin received the President's Volunteer Service Award for her two decades of service to schoolchildren. On May 27, 2016, she attended a Washington Nationals baseball game and was presented with a custom jersey on the field. Personal life and longevity. According to "The Independent" in 2016, she has two children with her late husband: a daughter and a son. While the former was alive at 87 years old, her son had since died. Despite this, she estimated she had about 50 living descendants. At least one of  her grandchildren had a great grandchild, making her a great great great grandmother. In 2016, "The Washington Post" reported McLaurin was having trouble receiving a replacement photo ID from the Department of Motor Vehicles due to her advanced age. In March 2019, McLaurin turned 110, becoming a supercentenarian. She celebrated her previous birthdays from ages 106 to 109 with her favorite basketball team, the Harlem Globetrotters.