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"There was also the fact that the North didn't have plantations, they had factories. And they wanted workers for those factories. All the better reason to free the slaves."

Below is a typical group photo of northern factory workers (Detroit, Michigan) ca. 1910. Do you see any blacks?? The reality is some black migration to the Northern factories did not occur until Ford offered $5 day, and then again, in a greater mass, when World War II drained the factories of able-bodied white men. None of which the Northern power during the Civil War could have foreseen.

1837 The Panic of 1837 was a severe setback to the nascent state bank and to several ambitious programs of public improvements, including the Clinton-Kalamazoo Canal
1838 Patriot War
1840 Douglass Houghton reported finding copper deposits on the Keweenaw Peninsula.
1846 Marji-Gesick, an Ojibwa Indian, pointed out a large deposit of iron ore to prospector Philo Everett near the present-day city of Negaunee.
1847 A law was passed by the State Legislature to re-locate the state capital from Detroit to a site "in the township of Lansing, in the county of Ingham."
1855 Michigan State University is founded as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, becoming the first land grant university in the United States.
1879 New State Capitol dedicated in Lansing. The structure cost $1,510,130.
1890s and 1900s Ford, Chrysler and General Motors were founded in southeastern Michigan.
1937 Flint Sit-Down Strike ended with official recognition of the United Auto Workers by General Motors.
1943 Riot broke out pitting whites against blacks during wartime.
1957 Five-mile long Mackinac Bridge opened November 1.
1967 Race riots struck the city of Detroit. After 5 days of rioting, 43 people lay dead, 1189 injured and over 7000 people had been arrested. The riot had lasting effects on the entire metro region and is usually cited as one of the reasons the Detroit area is among the most segregated areas in the United States.
1974 Gerald R. Ford of Grand Rapids became the 38th President of the United States.
1987 Michigan celebrated 150 years of statehood.
2002 Michigan elects its first woman governor, Jennifer Granholm (D).

Michigan as a haven of integration?! That picture was some 4-5 decades after the war. The fact that there aren't any blacks pictured is perhaps not very flattering for MI. [see 1943 above, and several entries later.]