CHICAGO (AP) — Thousands of students and activists protested across Illinois to press for gun control in the wake of a shooting that left 17 dead at a Florida high school last month.

Chicago’s March for Our Lives rally saw protesters fill Union Park west of downtown, holding signs that said “Never again” and “I stand with the students.” Jones College Prep student Eduardo Medel said Saturday’s event wasn’t “just a march, this is a movement.” Similar protests were planned across the Chicago suburbs.

In Bloomington, hundreds gathered outside the McLean County Museum of History. There also were hundreds of marchers in O’Fallon in southern Illinois.

The Illinois protesters are among hundreds of thousands who rallied in the nation’s capital and cities across America on Saturday in one of the biggest youth protests since the Vietnam era.