This meme is suggesting that someone is hating the entire white race based on the actions of just 1.6% of the population. It cites the U.S. Census as its source for the percentage of the population who were slave owners.

The trick with this type of meme is that the alleged source citation at the bottom — “US Government Census 1860” — leads people to believe it is a legitimate number. The author is hoping their audience is not going to actually research this number to verify its accuracy. This is how misinformation can spread rapidly.

I actually went to investigate the accuracy of the meme’s premise that only 1.6% of the U.S. population owned slaves by going directly to the U.S. Census. The real number is much higher than that.

But before we get into that, it’s worth noting that the United States at the time was made up of multiple races of people. Yes, white people may have been the majority, but they were not the entirety of the U.S. population. Since the meme is specifically talking about an alleged hatred of the white race based on this 1.6% number, shouldn’t they have provided what percentage of white people actually owned slaves? That’s one error right there.

Now, on to this 1.6% number. I have the U.S. Census stats between 1790 and 1850, which you can review right here. Note that this is not 1860. But if we accept the meme’s claim that 1860 was when slavery was at its peak, then any year preceding 1860 would have a lower percentage of slave ownership, right? Well, that is what the meme wants you to think. In 1790, the total percentage of the U.S. population that owned slaves was 17% — roughly 1 out of every 6 people. By 1850, that number was 13%, close to 1 out of 7. Both are far higher than 1.6%.

To get the full context of slave ownership in the United States, however, you need to look at each region’s and each state’s percentage of slave ownership.

In 1790, New England’s slave-owning percentage was 0.04%. The Middle States — such as New York, Pennsylvania, and Delaware — was 4.4%. The Southern States’ slave-owning percentage was 34%, meaning roughly 1 out of every 3 citizens was a slave owner. By 1850, the South’s slave-owning percentage had dropped to 31%. An individual state breakdown of the South ranges from as low as 14% to as high as 57%.

So no matter how you look at it, no figure from any time period comes anywhere close to the meme’s suggested 1.6%. The lowest national figure was 13% and the highest was 17%, while in the South it ranged from 31% to 34%. Without even arguing any of the other points in the meme, you can disregard it entirely — its opening premise is false, and its claim that this number came from the U.S. Census is also false.

Further Reading:
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Raw Story 4 Myths about Slavery in the U.S.