They were told to cast a White person for the role
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i highly doubt there was even a single black person on either of the british isles in 500ad.
There's 1 in the books.
Also a mad old character (King Pelinore) tells of once having seen 2 others.
Yeah there could have been 1 or 2. The isles were connected to the roman empire both east and west through trade and even through the majority of north africa and the middle east were white at this time, it's possible for a small number of subsaharan slaves or merchants to have made their way to britain. Like I said: 1 or 2. No more. Not enough to justify the casting choices of globohomo media makers.
There was that one Moorish knight, Sir Morien. From the 13th century Dutch saga Moriaen, we get this description of the eponymous knight:
Of course, this doesn't mean that there actually were black people in 6th century Britain, but one or two black people in an Arthurian story isn't out of place.
There was also one literally half black (where I mean half black and half white, like a chessboard) and a couple unspecified Saracens in Arthur's company too.
Speaking of (actual) chessboards, quite some magical chessboard stories. I think they also brought the chess from the Arabs (who had it via Persia from India) and instantly got fascinated by the game.