Hell, even before then, they killed off a black character named Everret Thomas, aka Synch. He could duplicate the powers of nearby mutants. He could duplicate more than one power set. He had the potential to be really powerful. His creator specifically wanted to introduced a hero who was not an angry black male. He was a well-adjusted character just doing the right thing without any drama. He was hinted as being an ancestor to Bishop.
I was hoping that when the Black Panther found Storm's American family, we would have seen at least one mutant. You would think a character as powerful as Storm would have similarly powerful relatives. It would have been cool to introduce a black American cousin for Storm. Storm also has an evil African warlord uncle, so they could have introduced an African cousin as well. Some of the more powerful mutants have large families like Cyclops, Colossus, Magneto, Cannanball, Mystique, etc.
It is strange how that book draws such inspiration from the black experience, yet stead-fast in not including more black characters. Charles Xavier is partly based on MLK.
