The "Free" Blacks

Authors Note: this is a piece is about how free the free blacks in the north actually were In the North the blacks were free, but my question is how free were they? I believe that they were only partially free. The reason I think that they are only partially free is because they have some of the rights as white people did, but not all of them. Some political freedoms that about half of the free blacks in the north had was voting. The reason only about half of them had this right is because some states gave blacks the right to vote and some of them didn’t. No blacks had the right to serve on a jury until 1860 when Massachusetts gave this right to the blacks. Blacks had next to no social freedoms in the north. They were not allowed to mingle with whites, be in a jury (except for Massachusetts after 1860), attend their churches, go to the same concert halls, marry white girls, or sit at the same table as whites. One right they did have was to own property. Also they could pay taxes. The black community almost had the same rights as the white community. They were allowed to own property and get a job. Although they could acquire a job not many whites would hire you if you were black. It didn’t matter if you were the smartest and most skilled human in the world because if you were black they viewed you almost like an alien, a weird looking creature from mars.