How did the experience of free blacks in the south compare with the experience of free blacks in the north?

Free blacks in the south still faced a large amount of systemic racism and legislation designed to keep them from enjoying the full fruits of the Constitution. With the imposition of black codes, the Jim Crow era, and concepts like red-lining, many southern cities and towns did their best to veritably exclude blacks from living day-to-day life on a par with that of whites.