TALLAHASSEE – Claiming victory despite their failure to force a special legislative session on Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” self-defense law, youthful protesters ended a 31-day occupation of the state Capitol’s ground floor on Thursday.

They vowed to take their demands to college campuses and state lawmakers’ campaign rallies in a long-term push for social change.

“I say to the young people here, you’re ending a protest because you started a movement,” Julian Bond, former chairman of the NAACP, said at a news conference in the Capitol rotunda.

“That movement is going to reverberate across the state of Florida and eventually to the adjoining states, until all of America knows something about the strength and the power that was demonstrated here.”

Calling themselves the Dream Defenders, the group began its sit-in four days after the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the fatal shooting of teenager Trayvon Martin in the central Florida town of Sanford.

Florida Governor Rick Scott rejected their demands for a special session, and efforts to get the Republican-run Legislature to convene one also fell short.