The statue of Harry F. Byrd Sr., a former Virginia governor, U.S. senator and arch-segregationist, is to be removed from Capitol Square in July, thanks to a bill signed into law March 18 by Gov. Ralph S. Northam.

The bill, introduced last year by Delegate Jay Jones of Norfolk and passed by the General Assembly earlier this year, requires the state Department of General Services to remove the statue and store it until the General Assembly “determines and directs the statue’s final disposition.”

The measure goes into effect on July 1. According to the DGS, the estimated cost to remove the statue from Downtown is $250,000, with another $7,000 annually to store it. The budget includes $257,000 for those efforts.

Mr. Byrd was the architect of “Massive Resistance” in Virginia and the South to thwart the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision ordering the racial integration of schools and finding the doctrine of “separate but equal” unconstitutional. To resist the court’s order, Virginia shut down public school systems in several localities rather than integrate.

“Racism and its symbols should never be celebrated or put on display in public spaces,” Delegate Jones said in a statement following the bill’s signing. “While we still have along way to go, this is a step in the right direction on our path to healing.”

“To me and a lot of folks, Harry Byrd is incredibly visceral,” Delegate Jones said during a Senate committee meeting in Feb- ruary. “All the things he did to keep Black people as second class citizens, or worse, is not a legacy we want to highlight.”