Black people are beating the odds by turning 100 — and they’re celebrating on TikTok

Many dread aging, but for some Black centenarians, 100 is just another number.

Videos of Black centenarians celebrating their birthdays have recently gone viral on social media, garnering millions of views from people who, in many cases, express shock over just how active these older adults are.

One of the viral videos is a TikTok of a Black woman celebrating her 100th birthday. The woman, named Annie Ruth, dances while wearing a royal blue dress, as she makes her grand entrance in a room filled with her friends and family. 

Another TikTok of a Black woman turning 104 garnered 1.7 million likes. In the video, the woman, Mason Byrd, blows out the candles on a custom birthday cake with a picture of her face. Many users in the thousands of comments expressed being surprised at how young she looks. 

“104? She’s clearly giving 70ish,” one user wrote. Another person agreed, writing, “104??? Where???”

While videos of these active centenarians surprise many, they also intrigue experts, who are still trying to uncover what exactly causes these individuals to live so long. Data shows that the life expectancy of Black people in the U.S. has declined, dropping from 74.8 in 2019 to 70.8 in 2021, according to KFF, a health policy research, polling and reporting organization. Additional data shows heart disease, cancer and Covid-19 as the top causes of death for Black people in 2021.

Some Black people may live so long thanks to genetics, lifestyle and resilience, according to experts. While the life expectancy for Black people was a little more than five years less than white people’s life expectancy as of 2021, when a Black person passes 85, their life expectancy outnumbers that of white Americans, said Antonius Skipper, an assistant professor at Georgia State University’s Gerontology Institute. He said this phenomenon is considered a mortality “crossover” and said resilience is one of the main factors helping Black people get to this stage. 

“The strongest of…