MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The Alabama Legislature has officially apologized to an elderly Black woman who was raped nearly seven decades ago by a gang of white men as she walked home from church.

The Senate gave final approval Thursday on a voice vote to a resolution that expresses “deepest sympathy and deepest regrets” to Recy Taylor, now 91 and living in Florida. She told The Associated Press last year that she believes the men who attacked her in 1944 are dead, but that she still wanted an apology from the state of Alabama.

The House approved the resolution last month. It now goes to Gov. Robert Bentley, who said Thursday he’s not personally familiar with details of the case, but sees no reason why he wouldn’t sign it.

Taylor was 24 when she was confronted by seven men who forced her into their car at knife- and gun- point and drove her to a deserted grove of trees where six of the men raped her in Abbeville in southeastern Alabama. She was then left on the side of the road in an isolated area.

Two all-white, all-male grand juries refused to indict the suspects after the attack. Recy Taylor’s brother, 74-year-old Robert Corbitt, said law enforcement authorities tried to blame the attack on his sister. He said his family was threatened after the attack, his sister’s house was firebombed and his father had to guard the house.

Taylor’s story, along with those of other Black women attacked by white men during the civil rights era, is told in “At the Dark End of the Street,” a book by Danielle McGuire, a professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. Activists including Rosa Parks took up the causes of Taylor and others, but their efforts were later overshadowed by other civil rights battles.

Pictured: In this Oct. 7, 2010 file photo, Recy Taylor is seen her home in Winter Haven, Fla. The Alabama Legislature has officially apologized to an Taylor, who was raped nearly seven decades ago by a gang of white men as she walked home from church.