Actually, Fury’s always been black in the Ultimate Marvel Universe; the character and the design was actually based on Jackson so casting him for the MCU probably was an obvious direction choice.

I also had my boss, when I worked in fast food, list this as one of the issues he had with the movie, when it came out (to quote him, “he’s a white character; no offense but that’s what he is,” which was particularly galling, given the aforementioned fact).