The author hasn't read Tarzan, either. At no point in the books does he return to the "savages" and become a better "savage" and rule them.
I remember that he ends up being head man for a particularly "noble" tribe of black people.
But he does so as a civilized white man, not as one of them.
The Tarzan books has plenty of savage black people. It also has lots of savage white people, civilized black people, white people, degenerates, primitives, etc...
If one is to go by "race" being noble, primitive, savage, degenerate, or whatever(such as a couple cases of extreme sexual dimorphism) in the Tarzan series, one pretty much needs to shift race down to tribe or a relatively small geographical location. Africa in the Tarzan universe should be at least 10x the IRL size to fit everything in. Coloration is only a small aspect.