She’s the Grammy Award-winning daughter of legendary singer Nat King Cole, but Natalie Cole’s most recent performance wasn’t designed to honor her family’s musical legacy or advance her own career. At a benefit concert for the American Liver Foundation last week, her only aim was to raise awareness about the seldom-talked-about and poorly understood disease…

Malikah Shabazz, Malcolm X’s youngest daughter, has been sentenced to five years of probation for stealing the identity of an elderly family friend and using it to make $55,000 in illegal purchases. In June she pleaded guilty to the crime. Now, in addition to beginning a period of probation, she’ll have to pay back the…

Long before Rosa Parks rose to fame for her role in the civil rights movement, she wrote a detailed account of her attempted rape by a white neighbor who employed her as a housekeeper in 1931, the Associated Press reports: The six-page essay, written in her own hand many years after the incident, is among…

The current debt ceiling debate has found Bill O’Reilly somewhat on the left of where he usually finds himself, warning Republicans and Tea Partiers alike not to interrupt the Democrats as they make their mistakes. Tonight he phoned into the program from Los Angeles, where he warned host Laura Ingraham that, since [at] this point…

Seven issues the black church won’t touch: From unwanted pregnancies to education and unhealthy eating, the Atlanta Post’s Anthony Jerrod has a list of seven issues that he says African-American Christians should stop ignoring. Forest Whitaker Serving Life documentary to debut on OWN: Whitaker is the narrator and executive producer of the new documentary Serving…

There was a huge development this summer for the anthropologists and historians who have been piecing together the history of an African-American community that was snuffed out in the 1850s by the creation of Central Park. The New York Times reports that they finally won permission from the city to excavate an area near 85th…

At the Ethiopian Heritage and Culture Camp in Virginia’s Shenandoah Mountains, some of the 2,500 Ethiopian children adopted by American families each year get to experience the food, dance and clothing of their native country. The Washington Post reports that the camp satisfied a huge demand for information about the country among adoptive parents, and…

Recession slams black auto dealerships: Thousands of auto dealers have been casualties of the economic crisis, but in Detroit, the impact on black businesses has been drastic, Automotive News reports. And there are half as many black-owned dealerships in the United States today as there were three years ago.   Los Angeles museum acquires MLK…

Michael Jackson’s family has announced that a concert in his honor will take place on Oct. 8 in Wales, with some of the world’s most popular artists performing. But the whole Jackson clan isn’t on board with the event, Uptown magazine reports. Jackson’s mother, Katherine, is completely behind “Michael Forever: The Tribute Concert,” saying: When…