I know this is an old thread, but I hope you still have your lovely black hair!
I've had black hair since 2004 - I find it SO easy to maintain. I've been every colour under the sun (hairdresser's daughter you see, lol) and it is the easiest and less taxing colour to maintain.
Blonde - too much maintenance, the peroxide kills your quality in your hair
Red - takes forever to build up the colour without fading, have to use perm colours
Foils of any colour - regrowth is a bitch!
I just use semi permanent colours every 6-8 weeks and they stick. Less harsher than my redhead days when I used permanent colours to sustain the intensity of the colour. Comparatively, I find my hair is in great condition as a result. My skintone is similar to Dita von Teese or Katy Perry (I'm pretty pastey!), but I find that the black hair actually looks really great and not washed out at all (if I don't say so myself).
I started off with a natural black colour, and then went to blue-black! That's my fave!
Now that my hair is waist length, there ain't no way I'll be able to switch to another colour without lopping the whole lot off. AND THAT'S NOT GONNA HAPPEN. I don't think I'll be changing anytime soon!
There's no point in trying to bleach or strip the colour out if your hair is long, like many have said on this post - it will ruin and break your hair. There's no point have long hair if it isn't in good nick. Nothing worse than ratty hair.