I feel like 80% of owners wouldn't be able to accurately describe the color of smoke coming out of a tailpipe. My guess is that smoke came out of the tailpipe and naturally smoke is black, right? So that's why they said it was black smoke.
White-ish smoke = coolant
Blue smoke = oil
Black smoke = fuel
Not coming out of the tailpipe, smoke could be auto trans, wiring, oil dumping onto hot exhaust, etc.
If it smoked out of the tailipipe and then died and would not restart, it probably overheated. Does it crank? Does it even attempt to fire? Does it fire but not want to stay running? Is there oil in the coolant? Is there coolant in the oil? Is there anything dripping out of the tailpipe? The list of questions goes on and on...