Sure, many white people back then who ostensibly opposed slavery no doubt saw black people as "less than". That would have been a much harder mentality to escape at a time when black people were slaves who were denied education and social contact.

But abolitionists *were* the people who would have intervened when you were getting hassled by the cops. They were the people who literally put their lives on the line for the belief that all men are created equal. I'm not naive enough to believe that they all felt that way, but you shouldn't be cynical enough to believe that none of them did.