Virginia McLaurin: Woman who danced with Obamas dies at 113
By Lindsay Brown
Newsbeat reporter
A Washington DC woman who lived her dream of dancing with President Barack Obama at the White House has died, aged 113. Virginia McLaurin was 106 when she met the nation’s first black president and first lady in 2016.
“I tell you, I am so happy,” she told President Obama at the time. “A black president, yay, and his black wife.”
In 2014, the centenarian started a viral petition to meet the president. “My name is Virginia McLaurin,” she wrote, “I live in Washington DC. I was born in 1909.”
106-year-old Virginia McLaurin broke into a dance with Barack and Michelle Obama
“I’ve never met a President. I didn’t think I would live to see a Colored President because I was born in the South and didn’t think it would happen.
“I am so happy and I would love to meet you and your family if I could.”
The former seamstress continued: “I remember the times before President Hoover.
“I remember when we didn’t have any electricity. I had a kerosene lamp. I remember the first car model Ford.
“My husband was in the Army. I lost my husband in 1941. I’ve been in DC ever since. I was living here when Martin Luther King was killed.”
Image source, Getty Images
Virginia McLaurin remembers when Martin Luther King was killed in 1968
In a video Virginia said she still remembered the time before she went to school.
“I was so little. [There was] no running water in the house. We’d have to draw water from the well.”
Virginia McLaurin was born in 1909. So what was life like for Americans back then?
This 1909 Welch 5 Passenger Touring might be the car you’d be driving…
Image source, Getty Images
The first flights were taking off, thanks to the Wright brothers…
Image source, Getty Images
Get your bloomers on – anyone for a game of croquet?
Image source, Getty Images
Not a leisurely life for all though….
Image source, Getty Images
Many women worked in factories in 1909
In 1909 America was prospering with new people arriving every day – it is the land of the free after all
Image source, Getty Images
But life for African Americans like Virginia McLaurin was still restricted. She was born with no civil rights.
That’s why she was so happy to live to see – and dance with – the first black president.
And 1909 wasn’t all bad for African Americans.
Its mission is “to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and racial discrimination”.
Image source, National Archives
This is the National Building Museum in Washington DC, as it looked in 1909
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Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-35633655?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA
