What were conditions like for African Americans in the North in the mid-1800s?

First of all, we should remember that for most of the "mid-1800s" (however one defines this) African Americans in the South were mostly enslaved rather than simply suffering discrimination. However, even those African Americans who were not enslaved were discriminated against. There are many examples of this discrimination. Free blacks in almost every state (even in the North) could not vote. In much of the South, it was illegal to educate any African American, even ...