Hands Across America

Hands Across America 1986

On May 25th, 1986, over 6 million people paid $10 to join hands for 15 minutes and form a human chain that theoretically stretched across the continental USA.  The money was donated to local charities to help fight hunger in the USA.  In reality, an unbroken chain of humans stretching from sea to shining sea would be a logistics improbability, so instead the human line took place in broken segments in 15 major cities across the USA (such as New York City, Little Rock, and Long Beach).  Where turnout was high, the line would snake back and forth, in some cases 10 people deep.  It is said that if all participants were able to join hands in a single line, that the line would have stretched across the lower 48 states.  Even the song "Hands Across America", written specifically for the event, peaked at 65 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1986.  The event raised $34 million dollars for charity.