Clint Black on 9/11 Commemoration Plans & Hurricane Relief

This is a partial transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," September 8, 2005, that has been edited for clarity.

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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the "Back of the Book" segment, country singer Clint Black has sold more than 18 million albums worldwide and is deeply involved in helping thousands of people. The Clint Black Foundation (search) raises money for the families of fallen American soldiers overseas, and on Sunday, the anniversary of 9/11, he'll be giving a free concert in D.C. supporting the military.

Mr. Black joins us now from Nashville.

Before we get to that, any thoughts on Katrina? You guys going to do anything there?

CLINT BLACK, COUNTRY SINGER: I'm in talks right now for participation in some benefit concerts, and there's a lot of organizations putting those on, so we're trying to figure out the best use of my time for those.

O'REILLY: Good. Because I think so many homeless people, so many people are going to have to have new houses, be relocated, that this is going on and on and on and on. And the more that the entertainment community can very methodically, you know, raise money for very targeted things, like Habitat for Humanity (search) and things like that.

BLACK: Right. Everybody in the country has a part to play in this, and right now, many of us are trying to figure out what that part is.

O'REILLY: Good.

BLACK: There are organizations on the outside that you might not think of, like NAMI, National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, who can have a special participation down there, that people that might fall through the cracks...

O'REILLY: Absolutely.

BLACK: ... while everyone is looking for, you know, things of sustenance. And so there is going to be a lot of things that a lot of people can do.

O'REILLY: Good. Now you're going to have a free concert in Washington marking 9/11 (search), and what is the reason for this?

BLACK: Well, that's a good question. Some people are confused about that. I've been hearing some harsh and some mild criticisms for the event. And I won't do any of them, you know, pay lip service to any of them.

But what we are doing is two-fold. And I'm taking this very seriously, that it is on September 11, and keeping in mind what that date means to so many families who lost family members in the plane crashes and who also have subsequently lost family members as a result of the wars taking place to bring justice to those who did it.

So we're going to do two things. We're going to try to pay our respects to those families who have lost loved ones. And we're going to try to entertain the troops and say thank you to them. This will be going out to 177 military bases around the world. And we're taking that part of it very seriously too.

They need a little bit of something from home. We need to have a little bit of fun, but we also need to be mindful of the feelings of the families.

We'll be doing a walk. There will be a walk that happens leading to the concert site. And so the first thing on our minds is going to be that we're speaking and we're singing directly to family members who lost somebody on that...

O'REILLY: OK. Now I was disappointed that the Washington Post pulled out of sponsoring this event because they said it was political. It isn't. I don't think it's political from the way you've described it.

You're supporting the military. Every American should support the military, even if you don't agree with Iraq or Afghanistan or whatever it may be. But we live in an age of political correctness, Mr. Black, that's just eroding our national fabric.

I'm going to give you the last word, sir.

BLACK: Well, politics, it's like passing an automobile crash. If you look closely at it, it's pretty repulsive. And that people would be applying politics to this day, it shows me that you can't hardly do something good in this country without being punished for it.

There was a lot of pressure on me to pull out of the event. And I'm disappointed that they did, as well. I think they have a great platform for explaining exactly what it is and making it as good as it ought to be, and that's our job.

O'REILLY: And publicize this and that. Well, we publicized it for you, Mr. Black.

BLACK: Thank you.

O'REILLY: I know you're going to have a big crowd down there. We encourage everyone to go and show his or her support for the military, which is so vital to our nation.

Thanks again, sir. We appreciate your good work.

BLACK: Thank you.

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