No. Its how you look at the entire picture.

There were more free blacks living the American South, prior to the end of slavery, than in the North. Northern laws were also very restrictive to free blacks.

No Native American was a citizen until 1924, therefore they could not vote, even in New England. Maine was the last to allow its two tribes to vote in national elections in 1954.

Hiram Revels is the first African American elected to the U.S. Senate (Mississippi) and Joseph Hayne Rainey becomes the first African American member of the U.S. House of Representatives (South Carolina). Where were the Northern African American representatives?

And women didn't have the rights of men anywhere until the 20th Century.

_______________________
David Upton