For a long time the narrative that the Northern States were the safe havens for African-Americans when the South was reeling with seeds of racial discords and discrimination under the infamous Jim Crow system has come to be taken for a truth. For one, it accepted the African Americans and tried, at least in theory, to come up with legislations on equality (Steele). However, the reality was far from the ideal. The North shared in the corruption of the South and was no heaven for the African-American.

To start with, the North exercised systemic discrimination in hiring of people. Some companies only hired white people, while those which offered jobs to African Americans exercised wage discrimination. The settlement areas often reacted to the mass movement of blacks into their cities. This often led to some developments in cities such as Buck, and Long Island segregating themselves (Steele).