IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) – The fight for equality, dignity and human rights was celebrated at a Juneteenth commemoration Friday at the Colonial Theater.

The national holiday honors the official end of slavery in the United States, marking the day U.S. troops showed up to free slaves in Galveston, Texas – two years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

“I am free to be whoever I want to be because of them. Because of their sacrifice, because of their suffering, I’m free,” said Idaho Falls Chef Jessica Jourdon.

The fight for emancipation in America endured for centuries.

“I am the product of a former slave – my great grandmother, my great aunt,” Jourdon said. “I have a college degree. I am a chef. I was a traveling chef. That is the legacy – educated, free to be whatever I want to be.”

The event issued a stark reminder of our nation’s progress and the gaps we have yet to cover.

Idaho Falls Mayor Lisa Burtenshaw, Ammon Mayor Brian Powell, Ucon Mayor Johnalee McDonald and Bonneville County Commissioner Michelle Mallard issued a Juneteenth proclamation.

“A lot of people work really hard to make this a legal holiday, [when] the slaves in Texas found out that they were free on the 19th of June,” said Rigby resident Marshall Moran.

The celebration featured students, music and speeches drawing upon African American culture and heritage.

“A century after the Emancipation Proclamation, a century after the Gettysburg Address, and a century after the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, blacks in the United States were still denied equality and liberty by law, by many local courts, and by social norms,” said Spyder King, a student in the Freedom Reader Theater.

That contest for civil liberties continues in the 21st century.

“We fight for progress year by year and day by day, so we just can’t give up on it,” Moran said.