In 1850, Delany was one of the first three black people admitted to Harvard Medical School, but all were dismissed after a few weeks following protests by white students. Delany also traveled in the south in 1839 to observe slavery, and beginning in 1847 worked alongside Frederick Douglass to publish the North Star. Delany then dreamed of establishing a settlement in West Africa, and visited Liberia as well as lived in Canada for several years, but as the American Civil War began returned to the United States.