Between those donations and corporate sponsorships from companies like Citibank and American Express, Hands seemed poise to raise quite a bit of cash the project’s coordinators wanted to gross $50 million that could then be dispersed to local causes through grants. They were also supposed to cough up a donation of at least $10 apiece to join the chain.
What do you do with millions of people once they’ve linked hands? Why not have them belt out a few tunes? The chain stayed together for 15 minutes, long enough for participants to sing “We Are the World,” “America the Beautiful” and, naturally, the Hands theme song.Ī human chain is nice and all, but how does it raise any money to feed the hungry? Participants weren’t just being asked to come out and hold hands. The Los Angeles Times reported that there were huge gaps in the line in some of the dodgier sections of East LA, and volunteers’ efforts to recruit people from their front porches to join the chain didn’t generate any interest. The participants couldn’t fully stretch from sea to shining sea given Hands’ circuitous route, so long ribbons or lengths of rope had to stand in for actual people for up to a hundred miles in areas like deserts. Whoopi Goldberg, Harry Belafonte, Brooke Shields and Dionne Warwick joined in on the handholding.Įven with this Hollywood glitz, the whole “across America” claim was a little dubious. Jet reported that NBA greats Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Alex English joined with Olympic track star Edwin Moses to form a sports committee. Other celebrities came out in droves, too. (Since this was 1986, of course the song’s backing band was Toto.) The ad drummed up some nice publicity for Hands Across America, but it couldn’t compare to what followed: a star-studded music video featuring the event’s amazingly cheesy theme song. What better place to grab the national consciousness than a Super Bowl commercial? That January, Hands made its first big splash when it ran an ad featuring its theme song during Super Bowl XX. (Rose and his Cincinnati Reds teammates joined hands with Little Leaguers at Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium during a road trip.) The event had four celebrity co-chairmen: Bill Cosby, Kenny Rogers, Lily Tomlin, and Pete Rose. Hands assembled a real murderers’ row of stars. Kragen and his team billed Hands as “the largest participatory event in the history of the world.”Ĭoca-Cola kicked in $8 million to get the project rolling, but an event like this really needed celebrities. Hands Across America was the brainchild of music promoter and charity activist Ken Kragen, who had previously played a lead role in putting together USA for Africa’s 1985 charity single “We Are the World.” Following the success of that project, Kragen trained his sights on the more ambitious task of forming a human chain across the country to raise money for charity. Let’s take a look at the story behind the big event.
In the nearly 25 years since Hands was a national phenomenon, it has slowly faded in our memories. They were participating in Hands Across America, a massive charity event and fundraiser that hoped to raise money for and draw attention to homelessness and hunger. They weren’t just big hand holding enthusiasts, though. On May 25, 1986, over 5 million Americans linked hands to make a 4,125-mile human chain that stretched from New York City to Long Beach.
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