Yes....there were several prominent black men (no women who made it into the history books) who fervently supported "back to Africa" movements. The most famous was a free black doctor (one of Harvard's first black students) and later an officer in the Union Army --Henry Highland Garnett. He and Douglass were great friends and partners in a newspaper called "The North Star." They fell out, however, over this very question. Dr. Garnett was for emigration back to Africa and Douglass was vehemently opposed.

Once the war started, Dr. Garnett dropped and disavowed this idea altogether, and promptly joined the Army, thinking that smashing slavery militarily would usher in a new and just and democratic era of peace and prosperity for the former black slaves right here in America.