Good morning,
I still get a chuckle our of a story that happened to us. We were visiting my parents who lived in the country in MS. There was a Black family who lived nearby and they would come over to use the phone. One day they did when our then 2 year old daughter was outside playing. She came running in the house and told us to come quick. "There are chocolate people coming here". The visitors heard her and thought it was funny. Guess it was a new name for them.
My children, when younger, described their friends who were black as, for example, "the little boy with the brown skin." There was no value judgment attached. The expression was used just as "red-headed" or "skinny" might be used.