Dark' in the feeling of 'had melanistic skin', yes. This is invaluable in bright atmospheres, since melanin ingests hurtful UVA and UVB frequencies in daylight, keeping them from infiltrating further and harming further tissues.
We appear to have gotten the quality for white skin through interbreeding with Neanderthals, and that didn't occur (best we can tell) until the predecessors of present day Europeans and Asians left Africa and relocated to Eurasia.
White skin is worthwhile in less radiant atmospheres. We fabricate nutrient D in the lower layers of our skin through a synthetic response which requires UVB frequencies. That is not an issue in bright atmospheres; in less radiant atmospheres anything which forestalls UVB arriving at those lower layers is terrible on the grounds that it obstructs our capacity to deliver nutrient D. Nutrient D is fundamental since it permits us to ingest minerals like calcium which are basic segments of bones and teeth.
So once we had the quality for white skin it multiplied, by means of common choice, in those human populaces which lived in less radiant atmospheres.