I’ve read that about the same percentage of freeman owned slaves as percentage of whites.
Yes, blacks were keen slaveowners. The first documented case of an American suing for the right to own another man for life was that of Anthony Johnson, a black man. He was born in Angola and came to the colony of Virginia as an indentured servant. He worked off his term of servitude then, as he grew wealthy growing tobacco, he began buying slaves of his own. He sued a neighbor for lifetime ownership of a slave named John Casor.
Did you know the first slave owner in the north American colonies was a black man named Anthony Johnson? He came to the colonies as an indentured servant, a step up from a slave, and worked until he bought out of his indenture.
Once becoming free of indenture he worked and bought some indentured servants of his own. One of those servants went to court because he had worked out his indenture but Johnson would not allow him his freedom. The English judge decided that Johnson had legally bought the servant and could hold him in slavery for life.
Johnson went on to be very prosperous and at one time was the largest slave owner in the colonies.