COLUMBIA, South Carolina (CNN) — The Confederate battle flag will likely take its last flaps in the wind at South Carolina’s statehouse soon. The House of Representatives voted early Thursday overwhelmingly in favor of a senate bill to have it removed.
And Gov. Nikki Haley has already said she would sign it into law.
Soon after nine African-American worshipers were shot dead in a Charleston church last month by racially motivated gunman Dylann Roof, she called for her legislators to vote for its removal.
But the flag mounted a tenacious last stand on Wednesday in South Carolina with the help of a handful of House lawmakers. They threw down proposed amendments to the bill that led debate to drag on more than 12 hours.
But little by little, the amendments gave out, and after 1:00 a.m. Thursday legislators finally voted on the bill — and passed it.
Gov. Haley congratulated them on Facebook.
“Today, as the Senate did before them, the House of Representatives has served the State of South Carolina and her people with great dignity,” she wrote. “I’m grateful for their service and their compassion. It is a new day in South Carolina, a day we can all be proud of, a day that truly brings us all together as we continue to heal, as one people and one state.”
