Gayle King is beyond excited to have the first American pope.

The CBS Mornings co-anchor, 70, attended Pope Leo XIV’s inauguration mass alongside best friends Oprah Winfrey and Maria Shriver on May 18. A few days later, King exclusively shared with PEOPLE what she yelled out from her front-row seat as the new pontiff drove by.

“You’re sitting in the front row, and Pope Leo goes by in the popemobile! We are like, ‘Chicago, Chicago!’ ” King told PEOPLE at the Gordon Parks Dinner Annual Awards Dinner and Auction on Tuesday, May 20.

Though she noted she and Winfrey aren’t Catholic like Shriver, King said, “You just felt something being in his presence. You really did.”

“We were excited to be there to witness history,” she added.

King and Winfrey captured the moment they shouted at the pope as he drove by at the inauguration mass, sharing it to Instagram on Wednesday, May 21. In the clip, Pope Leo seems to hear them and points in their direction, which thrills them.

Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected the 267th pope of the Roman Catholic Church on May 8, following a two-day conclave. Prevost, 69, and chose Pope Leo XIV as his papal name.

Pope Leo succeeds Pope Francis, who died on April 21 at the age of 88.

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Elsewhere at the Gordon Parks Dinner Annual Awards Dinner and Auction, PEOPLE spoke to Gordon Parks Foundation executive director Peter W. Kunhard Jr. about the organization’s yearly event.

“Tonight is about celebrating the legacy of Gordon Parks and his trailblazing contributions to art and social justice and fashion and film and all history,” Kunhard Jr. said. “It’s a night about creativity, arts and justice.”

This year’s event honored model and activist Bethann Hardison, artist Rashid Johnson, Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour and Ambassador Andrew Young, activist and former politician.