FARMVILLE — Moton Museum and Longwood University announced Monday that they have finalized an affiliation that will entwine the two institutions and eliminate admission fees for visitors.

The formalized covenant establishes in perpetuity the purpose of the Moton Museum and its building on Griffin Boulevard: to share the Moton story, to advance understanding of the history of the struggle for civil rights, and to advance the cause of civil rights in education.

The partnership offers the museum operational support and increased depth in areas such as marketing, technology, fundraising, and scholarship and teaching.   For Longwood, the partnership provides an opportunity to enhance the university’s mission to shape citizen leaders.

Among the more immediate changes is that visitors will no longer pay to visit the museum, officials said. Previously, adult regular admission was $7.

The Moton Council (which will work with the University to guide the museum’s programming, strategy, operations and outreach) and Board and Longwood also plan to collaborate in the upcoming weeks to assemble a search committee to identify and recruit a visionary executive director to carry forward the work of the museum.

Read more on what the announcement means in a guest column on Page 8 of today’s edition. The authors are Dorothy Holcomb, chair of the Moton Museum Council; Joy Cabarrus Speakes, member of the Moton Museum Board of Trustees; and W. Taylor Reveley IV, president of Longwood University.