Lawmakers in South Carolina’s House of Representatives have approved a measure to remove the Civil War-era Confederate flag from the grounds of the state Capitol in Columbia. 

The bill passed early Thursday morning by a vote of 94-20 on its third and final reading, after more than 13 hours of contentious debate.  Opponents of the bill, which was overwhelmingly approved by the state Senate the on Tuesday, offered more than 60 amendments during the debate aimed at delaying or possibly scuttling its eventual passage.

“It is a new day in South Carolina,” Governor Nikki Haley said on her Facebook page, “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.”

Thursday’s vote caps an intense effort that began after nine parishioners of a black church in nearby Charleston were fatally shot during Bible study on June 17.  Photos later emerged showing the alleged white gunman, Dylann Roof, holding the Confederate flag, which many blacks consider a symbol of the American South’s era of slavery and white supremacy. 

The victims included Clementa Pinckney, a state senator and the pastor of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Governor Haley had called for the flag’s removal after the massacre at Emanuel AME Church, rejecting the views of supporters who say it symbolizes the South’s history and heritage. 

The flag will be removed within 24 hours of Haley signing the bill into law, and it will be placed in a museum. 

The Confederate flag represented a handful of southern U.S. states which seceded from the nation and unsuccessfully fought northern, or Union, forces during the 1861-65 Civil War.  The flag began flying over the South Carolina statehouse in 1962 in a move opponents say was meant to defy the Civil Rights Movement of racial equality and integration.  The flag was moved to a nearby Civil War memorial in 2000. 

  capitol, confederate, dylann roof, flag, house, removal, senate, south carolina, vote