The civil rights movement, led by such icons as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, strived to achieve civil rights for African Americans and other minority groups in the United States. Gaining national attention in the mid-1950s, the civil rights movement is characterized by different protests, both nonviolent and violent, asserting that African Americans are equal to white Americans. Such protests as the Montgomery bus boycott and the March on Washington worked to change the way that the local, state, and federal governments perceived African Americans. How successful were their efforts? This book explores the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and addresses their effects during and after the civil rights movement.