I didn't know that. The old 78s were called "race records"?
Yes, back in the 1920s, the blues, jugband, and early jazz records were marketed as "race". The term was used in ads and on the records themselves. It wasn't used in an derogatory way. It was used so customers could find where they were looking for.
And, by the by, early country music (by guys like Fiddlin' John Carson, the Skillet Lickers and the Carter Family) was labeled "hillbilly".