The woman who got attention two years ago for busting a move with former president Barack Obama and first lady Michelle at the White House is back, this time playing basketball and dancing with the Harlem Globetrotters.
Virginia McLaurin celebrated her 109th birthday early by joining the Globetrotters in Washington D.C. on Tuesday at Brightwood Elementary School. She turns 109 on March 12.
With some basketball tricks and a Globetrotters-themed cake, McLaurin was able to mark another year of celebration.
McLaurin is a big fan of the basketball team, and said it was a birthday to remember.
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“I don’t know anything that made me feel so happy, to be with the children and The Globetrotters,” she said. “This is really joy, joy to my heart.”
The entire crowd of players and students sang her “Happy Birthday,” and her everlasting exuberance stayed on her face throughout the day, smiling from ear to ear.
Players Zeus McClurkin and Swish Young helped her learn how to spin basketballs on her fingers and got her dancing once more in her wheelchair. They also donated 109 tickets to their games in D.C. and Fairfax, Va., to underprivileged kids in her honour, the Washington Post reports.
This is the third time the D.C. centenarian has been able to celebrate her birthday with the team, having visited a different school in the D.C. area each time, and she told Fox 5 News, they’ve become good friends.
“I didn’t realize that people loved me so much,” she said, with her red, blue and white Globetrotters cake sitting next to her.
McLaurin also received an autographed game ball and a jersey with the number 109.
Two years ago, she had the opportunity to dance at the White House with the former president expressing surprise at her age of 106.
“Well, you gotta slow down,” he said smiling.
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When asked what the secret was to dancing at 106 by Obama, she told him to “keep movin.'”
She told The Washington Post on Tuesday that the memory still remains in her heart.
“I didn’t think I’d ever live to see a black president. That’s what made me feel so good,” she said. “Joy still rings in my heart for that.”
McLaurin was born in 1909 to sharecroppers in South Carolina, according to The Post, and lived in a time when racial segregation was legal.
“A lot of things happened in my life that I didn’t think would ever happen,” she told the newspaper.
Naturally, the question on many people’s minds came out during McLaurin’s visit — her longevity and the secret behind it.
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“I don’t know myself,” she said laughing to Fox 5. “Cornbread, peas … collard greens!”
There was one other piece of advice she shared with everyone, Fox reports, which she learned from her mother.
“I love people,” McLaurin said. “My mother trained us to love everybody. You don’t know who you’re going to need, or whose hand you will fall in before you leave this world. So you have to love people. And I do.”