Hands Across America
Hands Across America was a large-scale charity event held on May 25, 1986, where millions of people joined hands to create a human chain stretching from Long Beach, California, to Battery Park in Manhattan. Organized by Ken Kragen, who previously helped coordinate the USA for Africa initiative, this event aimed to address hunger and homelessness within the United States. Participants were encouraged to donate ten dollars, with an initial goal of raising $60 million through the involvement of approximately six million individuals. Major corporate sponsors, such as Citibank and Coca-Cola, contributed an additional $8 million to the cause.
At 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time, participants sang "America the Beautiful" and "Hands Across America," a song created specifically for the event. Despite the extensive participation and celebrity involvement, the event faced challenges, including significant gaps in the human chain and high organizational costs, resulting in a net contribution of around $20 million to local charities. While Hands Across America fell short of its ambitious financial goals, it played a critical role in raising awareness about hunger and homelessness during a time when these issues were often overlooked in American society.
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Hands Across America
The Event A benefit to fight hunger and homelessness
Date May 25, 1986
Place From Long Beach, California, to New York City
During the 1980’s, many major charity events were held to address social problems around the world. Hands Across America was one such event, and it raised awareness among the American public about two important social issues.
Hands Across America was a charity event staged on May 25, 1986, in which millions of people held hands to form a human chain across the United States from Long Beach, California, to Battery Park in Manhattan. The project was organized by Ken Kragen, a musician manager. Kragen was also instrumental in organizing the USA for Africa project, which featured many famous musicians singing the song “We Are the World,” recorded to raise money for famine in Africa. Unlike Kragen’s previous venture, the Hands Across America project was a domestic project, focused on fighting hunger and homelessness in the United States.
Participants in the event were asked to donate ten dollars to the cause, and prior to the event organizers estimated that it would take six million people to complete the chain, bringing the total expected contributions to $60 million. In addition, Citibank and the Coca-Cola Company donated a combined $8 million to the effort. On the afternoon of the event, at exactly 3:00 p.m. eastern standard time, all participants sang the songs “America the Beautiful” and “Hands Across America.” The latter song had been written specifically for the occasion. Participating at various points along the chain were numerous high-profile celebrities, including Liza Minelli and Gregory Hines in New York City, President Ronald Reagan at the White House in Washington, D.C., Kathleen Turner in St. Louis, Kenny Rogers in Amarillo, Texas, and Richard Dreyfuss in Santa Monica, California.
Following the event, despite the fact that millions of Americans participated and a large amount of publicity surrounded the charitable function (including promotional ads on McDonald’s placemats and commercials during the Super Bowl), Hands Across America was deemed by many to be a failure. Large gaps occurred in several places along the route, sometimes spanning hundreds of miles, so the chain had to be completed by ribbons and ropes. In addition, while the event raised nearly $50 million, it was so large and required so much organizational effort that it necessitated a staff of four hundred and cost nearly $17 million to put together. In the end, event organizers were able to donate only $20 million to soup kitchens, food pantries, and other organizations to help the hungry and homeless across the country.
Impact
Even though Hands Across America raised far less money than organizers had hoped, the event still served to raise public awareness of two important social issues during the 1980’s: hunger and homelessness. These issues were sometimes dismissed during the decade, as general U.S. prosperity led to denigration rather than sympathy for impoverished Americans. The rising public awareness that extreme poverty was a serious social problem in the United States and that it was not caused by laziness coincided with an increase in charitable donations by the American public.
Bibliography
Beck, Melinda, et al. “A New Spirit of Giving.” Newsweek, June 2, 1986, 18.
Hands Across America, May 25, 1986. New York: Pocket Books, 1986.