Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor” helped a small, historically black college in Alabama raise enough money for its band to go to Donald Trump’s inauguration this week.
The Talladega College Marching Tornadoes were struggling to come up the $75,000 needed to send the band to Washington D.C. to perform at the inauguration of Donald Trump. Bill O’Reilly heard about the situation and invited the college’s president, Billy C. Hawkins, to appear on his program.
“Some alumni have come at me pretty hard; they don’t want the band to participate and say I am a disgrace to my race,” Hawkins said on the show. “But this is about the students having an opportunity to participate in this national ceremony.”
Since Hawkins appeared Thursday night on “The O’Reilly Factor,” the band has raised over $600,000 on a GoFundMe page with mostly small donations ranging from $5 to $20.
Thursday’s episode of O’Reilly averaged 4.1 million viewers and the band will now perform at Trump’s inauguration.
It was announced on Tuesday that O’Reilly will interview Trump for a special that will air during the Super Bowl pregame show on Fox broadcast. This will mark O’Reilly’s first interview with incoming President Trump, but he interviewed him several times when he was a candidate during the election season.
“The O’Reilly Factor” finished 2016 as the most-watched host on cable news.