A few years ago I was reading a People’s Magazine article about Bob Dylan and his works of art. Behind him was a picture of a woman that looked eerily similar to myself. She had shoulder length hair with delicate hands barely covering her voluptuous breasts and was unmistakably black.  No, Bob Dylan was not dreaming of me when he created the beautiful image. However, I could not get over how much she looked like me. Heck, she probably looked like many of the readers of this blog. That’s just it, she looks like “us.” That’s because Bob Dylan loved chocolate according to British author, Howard Soundes:

“I think he dated some of these black girls because they didn’t idolise him. They were real down to earth, and they didn’t worship him. They are strong women who would just say, cut your bullshit.”

The author said Dylan’s music was not popular in the African-American community. “While women from his own, white middle-class background, often saw him as an overawing presence, he was just another guy to African-American women and this was refreshing to him.”

He liked black girls so much that he married his black back-up singer Carolyn Dennis and had a daughter with her. BUT, he kept them hidden from the media. Let’s be fair, though. Both he and his black ex-wife are believed to have wanted to keep their relationship and daughter out of the spotlight. Were his relationships/marriages with white women hidden from the media? That’s a fair question to ask. It is suggested that he tried to hide his marriage to his first wife, a white woman named Sara Lownes:

 Until now, it has been thought that he was married only once, to Sara Lownes, in November 1965, in a low-key ceremony on Long Island. Even then he shied away from publicity, inviting only two guests, his manager Albert Grossman and a bridesmaid.

What if race had everything to do with the hiding the mystery marriage to Dennis? Can we blame them for wanting to hide their union from racist fans that may have hurt their pocket book? Maybe, just maybe Dylan wanted the media to mind their own business. Only the couple knows for sure.

Would you be willing to hide?

Christelyn barging in here–sort of rings true, based on the recent news that Michael Ealy secretly courted and married a non-black woman (presumably) for fear of upsetting his black female fans?