Approximately 40% of Americans have never left the United States. That may sound strange to
those of us outside America, but you have to remember the US is a big place. If I,
as an Irishman wanted to go to the desert for some reason, well I'd have to leave Ireland.
But an American could go to a desert, a snowy mountain, a massive city, a forest,
Disneyland, without ever leaving the country - and that drastically reduces their chances of
ever meeting a Frenchman. There's little need to leave because it has everything,
because it's so vast. So vast that making a chain of humans holding hands from coast
to coast sounds like an impossible task - but it's actually been done.
Hands Across America was a public fundraising event in 1986 that sought to bring 6 million
Americans together in hand-holding across a 4,000 mile chain from the East coast to the West coast.
The event was held by USA for Africa - that's United Support of Artists for Africa,
not United States of America for Africa. You may remember them from the 1985 hit single
"We Are the World", that featured a star-studded ensemble of celebrities raising money for famine
and disease relief in Africa. USA for Africa hoped to replicate the success of "We Are the
World" with Hands Across America, aiming to raise between 50 to 100 million dollars with the event.
It took 400 staff 9 months to organise the event and spread awareness. They even released another
song for the event, although it didn't come close to the massive success of "We Are the World",
featuring no notable celebrities except for members of the band Toto,
who provided instrumentals for the track. That didn't mean celebrities weren't on board
with Hands Across America though, there were a few featured in the song's video which aired
for weeks on MTV, like Robin Williams and... C-3PO. The song was also to appear in 1986's
Super Bowl halftime show, although apparently Michael Jackson complained it upstaged "We Are
the World", which he had written with Lionel Richie. So instead of the song,
there was a Hands Across America commercial featuring Lily Tomlin and... Bill Cosby.
The publicity campaign was a success, and come Sunday May 25th, 1986, around six million
Americans showed up to be part of Hands Across America. Participants were asked to donate $10
dollars to reserve their spot and if they wanted to give more, there were commemorative t-shirts
and the like as an incentive. So, were they able to create a continuous human link from
one coast to another? Yes! - well, kind of, there were a number of hiccups along the way.
The chain would start in New York and as you can see had a bit of a meandering path
through cities like Washington DC. Believe it or not the route chosen caused protests
from cities that saw their exclusion from the event as an intentional slight rather than,
y'know, a matter of practicality - I mean you want to be doing something like this,
not this. Over a million Americans participated in other similar events, like Hands Across Hawaii,
who's slogan was "Hawaiians are Americans, too!" Are you really that upset you weren't involved?
Hawaii is 2,000 miles away from the US Mainland! Hands Across Massachusets was another one,
sparked by official protests from senator Ted Kennedy and representative Edward Markey,
who were apparently taking their exclusion very personally. Thankfully the 80's was a
blissful time in America where there were no other problems whatsoever, so politicians had
plenty of time to focus on this issue, because there was nothing else worth addressing.
Another hiccup was Sport Aid, another charity event that was also held by USA for Africa.
Unfortunately they had seemingly inadvertently organised both events for the same day, and since
Hands Across America was much better publicized, Sport Aid suffered a disappointing turnout.
But Hands Across America had great participation, there were celebrities like Bill Clinton,
presumably holding the hands of some interns, Yoko Ono - eyhhh - and Mr African charity himself,
President Ronald Reagan. Yeah, there were some protests over his involvement too.
The chain of hand holders ended up in some pretty interesting places,
like New Jersey's Rahway State Prison where five hundred inmates held hands,
and the Susquehanna River in Maryland where divers held hands underwater. Springfield
Illinois saw 50 Abraham Lincoln impersonators holding hands, although they were outdone by 54
Elvis impersonators in Memphis, Tennessee. The chain did have some problems though,
especially in the Western states where the climate wasn't the most hospitable. God made the desert
for scorpions and rattlesnakes to fight to the death under the boiling sun, not for a bunch of
goons to hold hands in. As such, there were some gaps in the chain, although these were
filled in with banners or ribbons or ropes. Some ranchers even used cattle to fill in the gaps.
Then there were other parts of the line, like the big cities, where people just weren't doing it
properly. They were standing real close together or even infront and behind of eachother, leading
to some parts of the chain being ten people wide, which was obviously unneccessary, and also stupid.
Hands Across America lasted about 15 minutes, during which time participants sang songs like
"America the Beautiful", "We Are the World" and the Hands Across America song, obviously. If you
count the gaps that were filled with non-human objects, they did manage to form a chain from
coast to coast, if you also count the gaps that were filled with nothing - yeah unfortunately
they couldn't quite complete the continuous chain but, well, get this, there were enough
participants involved to have done it properly if they'd all been standing four feet apart
and weren't all bunched up in certain sections. As for the fundraising aspect, well, they didn't
quite reach their 50 to 100 million dollar target. The event instead raised $34 million,
still a fairly sizeable sum, I certainly wouldn't turn it down, but well, even this wasn't as
straightforward as it sounds. Obviously a lot of money had gone into organising the whole thing,
liability insurance alone cost $3 million dollars. After deducting these operating expenses,
only $15 million was left for Africa, less than half of the money raised.
Well something is better than nothing, unless that something is the bitter fact that Americans are
so contrarian even an event that literally united them hand in hand around the country
for the purposes of charity was divisive enough to cause protests. United we stand,
divided we... also stand, but in a different state, cursing you for not making the hundreds
of miles of detour to include us, bastards. Overall I think Hands Across America was a
nice idea. You know what else is a nice idea? Watching another one of my videos.
If you liked this one that is, which I imagine you did if you made it this far. I have a video
about another American charity event in the 80's that didn't turn out quite as planned,
actually it was a disaster. And if you've seen a few of my videos and liked them all,
why not subscribe to see them as I release them? Until next week, stay safe.