Америка қолынан-қолға: 1986 жылғы қайырымдылық акциясы

Charity event across the continental United States in 1986 involving a human chain

Hands Across America was a public fundraising event held on Sunday, May 25, 1986, Memorial Day weekend, which attempted to create a continuous human chain of people held hands across the contiguous United States. While approximately 5.5 million people participated, the chain was broken in many places, particularly in the Southwestern desert. The number of participants would have been roughly sufficient to create an unbroken chain if they had been spread out evenly along the planned route, but most joined the chain in major cities and few traveled to more remote areas. The various gaps in the line between participants were filled using ribbons, ropes, or banners. Participants were encouraged to donate $10 to be assigned a place in the line. The proceeds were donated to local charities to fight hunger and homelessness and help those in poverty. The event raised about $15 million for charities after operating costs, significantly less than organizers had hoped to collect.

The event was promoted and organized by Ken Kragen, a co founder of USA for Africa, the charity organization which produced "We Are the World" in early 1985 to raise money to fight famine in Africa. That promotion was criticized by some for focusing on Africa when hunger was also a prevalent problem in the United States. Kragen described Hands Across America as "a logical extension" of the "We Are the World" effort, focusing on the issue of hunger in the United States. Kragen said the idea was first suggested to him by advertising executive Geoff Nightingale at a New York City Ballet performance of "We Are the World". Hands Across America was first publicly announced at a Manhattan press conference on October 22, 1985, featuring Kragen and videotaped messages from Bill Cosby, Kenny Rogers, and Pete Rose. At that time, it was stated that planning for the event had been underway for five months. Coca Cola agreed to sponsor the event, covering an estimated $18.8 million in operating costs. More than 700 other companies, including CITIBank, McDonalds, Ticketmaster, and Safeway, sponsored and marketed the event. Hands Across America was unrelated to a previous, unsuccessful project of the same name which attempted to organize a human chain across the country to mark the Bicentennial on July 4, 1976. The 1976 plan was unable to raise enough funds and succeeded only in setting up approximately 8 to 10 miles of chains in and around Chicago. USA for Africa organizers said that they had never heard of the earlier effort until after announcing their plan. Marvin J. Rosenblum, who had conceived of the idea in 1975 and spent a year trying to bring it to fruition, said he found it "hard to believe" that no one in the organization remembered his heavily promoted campaign. However, he was unable to take legal action because his trademark on the name "Hands Across America" had since expired. The song was written by Marc Blatte, John Carney, and Larry Gottlieb, and featured lead vocals by session singers Joe Cerisano and Sandy Farina, and the band Toto. On January 18, dozens of celebrities joined hands with hundreds of locals on the main street of Taft, California to film a music video for the song, which was set to first air during the Super Bowl XX halftime show the following week. However, Michael Jackson intervened at a USA for Africa board meeting days before the Super Bowl to insist that "We Are the World" should be played during the broadcast instead. As a result, while portions of the Taft video were seen during the halftime show, the "Hands Across America" song was not heard. The song was distributed to approximately 8,000 radio stations for a nationwide simulcast on the morning of Good Friday, as had been done with "We Are the World" on Good Friday 1985. "Hands Across America" ultimately peaked at #65 on the Billboard Hot 100. Individual participants in Hands Across America were asked to donate $10 for the opportunity to join the chain, although many people who had not paid joined the line anyway. Celebrities and companies could sponsor portions of the line at a cost of $13,200 per mile, since it was estimated that 1,320 people would be needed to cover a mile of the route. Recording artist Prince was reportedly the first person to "buy a mile" in this way. Donna Brazile, future chair of the Democratic National Committee, was the director of Hands Across America in Washington, D. C. Kragen compared the structure of the organization to "pyramid selling", with organizers at the state, regional, and local levels responsible for smaller and smaller segments of the chain, then "mile captains" overseeing each mile and "tenth of a mile captains" at the lowest level. Bus rides were organized to transport large groups of people to distant spots along the route. Local organizers and communities the chain passed through, many of which had never hosted thousands of out of town visitors before, were responsible for providing food and portable toilets for visitors. No major incidents or injuries were reported during the event, and no claims were filed against Hands Across America's insurance policy.|frame align=right|frame width=550|frame height=300|type=line|from=Hands Across America. map

The eastern end of the chain was at Battery Park in New York City, within view of the Statue of Liberty. The first person in the line was 6 year old Amy Sherwood, whose family had been living in a local welfare hotel until recently. Notable participants in Battery Park included New York governor Mario Cuomo, mayor Ed Koch, Cardinal John O'Connor, Senator Alfonse D'Amato, Yoko Ono and her son Sean Lennon, Harry Belafonte, Helen Hayes, Lily Tomlin, Bella Abzug, Kool and the Gang, Ken Kragen, and Liza Minnelli. On the George Washington Bridge, Brooke Shields and Christy Fichtner (who had been selected as Miss USA five days earlier) stood at the sign marking the border between New York and New Jersey. The date and time chosen for the event inadvertently conflicted with another charity fundraiser, Sport Aid, a global event organized by USA for Africa on the same day. Since Hands Across America was much better publicized in the United States, only 4,000 runners participated the New York City portion for Sport Aid, which coincided with a special session on world hunger at the United Nations. In New Jersey, the route passed through Newark, New Brunswick, Princeton, and Trenton. At Drumthwacket, the New Jersey governor's mansion in Princeton, Governor Thomas Kean was joined by Senator Frank Lautenberg and Joan Rivers. In Philadelphia, the line looped around the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Grover Washington, Jr. stood in Fairmount Park, while Pennsylvania governor Dick Thornburgh and several members of the Philadelphia Eagles participated in front of Independence Hall. Joe Frazier Jr. joined in front of his father's gym on Broad Street. Due to a high level of interest in South Jersey, a spur was added to the route, crossing the Benjamin Franklin Bridge from Philadelphia into Camden, New Jersey and extending southeast as far as Haddonfield before looping back into Pennsylvania. Dionne Warwick joined the line on the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, while Tony Danza and Lainie Kazan participated in Camden. At Delaware Park near Wilmington, horse racing was suspended for 15 minutes so that the line could cross through the racetrack. Pedestrians were not permitted to stand on the Thomas J. Hatem Memorial Bridge between Perryville and Havre de Grace, Maryland, so a group of scuba divers connected the line underneath the surface of the Susquehanna River. In Baltimore, the line passed by the Inner Harbor and Pratt Street Power Plant. In Washington, D. C., the route passed by the United States Capitol, where Rev. Billy Graham spoke; Reagan had previously said he would not join the chain. However, in the days leading up to the event, the president made a controversial remark that "where there is hunger you have to determine that that is probably because of a lack of knowledge on the part of the people as to what things are available". Shortly after his comments were criticized in the press, Reagan announced that he and his family had decided at the last minute to join Hands Across America, although press secretary Larry Speakes denied that there was any connection between the two events. White House staff, Secret Service agents, and members of the press connected the chain through the secured North Lawn of the executive mansion. Reagan's participation was itself criticized by activists, who said that the president's cuts to social programs had dramatically worsened hunger in America. Mitch Snyder led a chain of his own on the opposite side of Lafayette Square in protest, with activists chanting at the president, "What about tomorrow? What about tonight?" Rev. Jesse Jackson stated, "He should not be in the line. His policies created the line." The easternmost reported gaps in the chain were in western Maryland. A seven mile segment along Route 355 southeast of Frederick was canceled entirely because it was considered too dangerous, and further breaks were observed in Hagerstown. The Maryland state director of Hands Across America said that 90 percent of the route through the state was covered. While the official route lined up dozens of steelworkers along the Sixth Street Bridge, locals organized "Boats Across the Allegheny", with dozens of watercraft lined up side by side connecting Fort Duquesne Boulevard to Three Rivers Stadium. The greatest number of participants in the chain of any state were in Ohio, where the route zig zagged from Youngstown through Akron and Cleveland to Toledo, then returned eastward to Columbus before proceeding southwest to Dayton and Cincinnati. The Ohio Department of Highway Safety took an active role in coordinating its segment of the route and ensuring the safety of participants. Notable participants in the state included Celeste Holm and Dr. Benjamin Spock in Cleveland, Don Novello in Lorain, Ohio governor Richard Celeste and senator John Glenn in Columbus, and David Copperfield in Cincinnati. At SeaWorld Ohio in Aurora, two orcas and their trainers, along with a sea lion and a baby Magellanic penguin, took part. The event fell on the same day as the Indianapolis 500, leading to concerns about the logistics of bringing the route through Indianapolis. The Indy 500 was rained out and postponed until the following weekend, while the weather also caused lower turnout than expected for the city's segment of Hands Across America. A widely reported human interest story was that of the small town of Denver, Indiana, where thousands of residents of the larger city of Fort Wayne were expected to join the line, and the route was extended through Denver to accommodate them. Michigan City, and Gary. In Chicago, Illinois, the route ran up King Drive and Michigan Avenue to the Oak Street Beach and Lincoln Park, proceeding from there to the western and southwestern suburbs. Notable participants in the city included Oprah Winfrey at Cermak Road, mayor Harold Washington on a stretch of Michigan Avenue lined with over 1,000 city employees, Illinois governor James R. Thompson and Super Bowl XX champion quarterback Jim McMahon on the Magnificent Mile, Senator Alan J. Dixon in Lincoln Park, and Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in Orland Park. The route through central Illinois passed through Champaign, Decatur, The small town of Onarga rejected event organizers, and participants who were supposed to be bussed there were redirected to other areas. In Champaign, where the 1985 Chicago Bears had trained for their successful Super Bowl run four months earlier, Walter Payton sponsored a mile of the line, but was unable to attend due to the team's spring practice in Platteville, Wisconsin. The line crossed the Clark Bridge over the Mississippi River from Alton, Illinois to St. Louis, Missouri, where Illinois senator Paul Simon and Missouri state legislator Mary Kasten joined hands at the state line. In St. Louis, the line passed underneath the Gateway Arch, where actors Kathleen Turner and Eric Douglas joined mayor Vincent C. Schoemehl. A segment near the village of Old Appleton, Missouri, led by activist Wayne Cryts and sponsored by Monsanto, was designated the "American Family Farmer Mile", and 29,000 pounds of food (purchased with grant money raised from Farm Aid) was distributed to struggling farmers who joined the line there. At Cape Girardeau, the route crossed the Mississippi again, then roughly followed the river's east bank through southern Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Kentucky's segment included Ryan's Hope stars Christopher Durham and Malcolm Groome in Bardwell and Clinton, respectively, and Mel McDaniel and Peter Fonda at the Tennessee state line in Fulton. The official midpoint of the line was in Ripley, Tennessee, where 14,000 people gathered along a three mile stretch of U. S. Route 51 alongside Judy Collins, Brenda Lee, the Marshall Tucker Band,

In Memphis, the line passed down historic Beale Street, where people grabbed the hands and ankles of the Elvis Presley statue to include him in the chain. Ruby Wilson joined in front of the W. C. Handy statue nearby. but some of the largest gaps in the state appeared west of Forrest City. Participants in Dallas included Mickey Leland, Tony Bennett, and Tony Dorsett. Along US Highway 287, which the route followed for a remote stretch of hundreds of miles that passed through Wichita Falls and Amarillo, the roadway was dotted with clusters of people at every mile marker connected by ropes. The Forester Sisters performed on the line in Amarillo. Kenny Rogers and Lee Greenwood stood on the back of a flatbed truck straddling the border between Texas and New Mexico in the ghost town of Glenrio. Thousands of people gathered in and around Glenrio, and the band Renegade performed for the crowd there. At Albuquerque's train station, where a transcontinental Amtrak train happened to stop at the appointed time, conductors and passengers joined hands at the depot. West of Albuquerque, a "bikers' mile" featured Mickey Jones. Alex English and Holly Palance participated in Grants. New Mexico saw a larger proportion of its population turn out than any other state along the route, although this still represented less than half of the people needed to complete the chain through the state. In Navajo, Arizona, a segment designated as one of the event's "toughest miles" to fill was sponsored by American Express, and over 1,000 American Express employees and family members joined hands with local members of the Navajo Nation, Ray Parker, Jr., Hervé Villechaize, and Arizona governor Bruce Babbitt to ensure the mile was unbroken. Ed Begley, Jr. and Thelma Houston stood at Sunset Point near Black Canyon City, north of Phoenix. As is typical for Memorial Day weekend in Arizona, temperatures were over 90 degrees on the day of the event. Organizers canceled the portion of the route from Tonopah to Ehrenberg, on the border with California, due to concerns about extreme heat. To symbolically complete the connection, helicopters took off from both towns at the appointed time and met in Vicksburg, where a time capsule was buried in a ceremony headlined by Robert Goulet. In Blythe, California, an estimated 10,000 people gathered from the Arizona state border to downtown, including Senator Alan Cranston, Bo Derek, Shelley Duvall, and Anson Williams. The segment of the route through the Colorado Desert from Blythe to Indio was canceled due to concerns about extreme heat, and a "human energy ribbon" stretched across this 100 mile gap. However, hundreds of people still turned out in 100 degree heat in Desert Center, near the middle of the canceled stretch, joined by the band REO Speedwagon. Bob Seger and Charlene Tilton joined the chain in Riverside. Inside the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, televangelist Rev. Robert Schuller led 3,000 parishioners in joining hands, including Pat Boone and state attorney general John Van de Kamp. In Anaheim, Disneyland allowed the line to enter its gates, where park employees and their family members joined hands with costumed characters and Walt Disney Company president Frank Wells. Richard Dreyfuss, Celebrities in Long Beach included Lyle Alzado, Shari Belafonte, Whoopi Goldberg, Dudley Moore, Donny Osmond, Daniel J. Travanti, Cicely Tyson, Ben Vereen, Raquel Welch, Beach Boys tribute band Papa Doo Run Run performed at the Long Beach celebration, joined by Alzado, Loggins, and emerging actor John Stamos. At the end of the line were Bill Jones, Mary Hally, and their five children, residents of a local homeless shelter. and of the number of people who actually participated. A prominent example was "Hands Across Massachusetts", a four mile loop through Boston and Cambridge, which was reportedly the only such event to receive the official endorsement of the national Hands Across America organization. Senator Ted Kennedy spoke at the event, where he criticized President Reagan's approach toward the issue of hunger. The day before the official event, a chain stretching the length of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California was staged, featuring mayoral candidate John Molinari and future mayor Willie Brown. Another unofficial but widely reported event took place at Rahway State Prison in New Jersey, where approximately 500 inmates staged "Hands Across the Big Yard" and raised money for Hands Across America amongst themselves. After a Hands Across America organizer presented a video about the event to the prisoners, a group of inmates offered to fill gaps in the Southwest. When that idea was rejected, the inmates staged their own chain inside the prison.

The event was promoted and organized by Ken Kragen, a co founder of USA for Africa, the charity organization which produced "We Are the World" in early 1985 to raise money to fight famine in Africa. That promotion was criticized by some for focusing on Africa when hunger was also a prevalent problem in the United States. Kragen described Hands Across America as "a logical extension" of the "We Are the World" effort, focusing on the issue of hunger in the United States. Kragen said the idea was first suggested to him by advertising executive Geoff Nightingale at a New York City Ballet performance of "We Are the World". Hands Across America was first publicly announced at a Manhattan press conference on October 22, 1985, featuring Kragen and videotaped messages from Bill Cosby, Kenny Rogers, and Pete Rose. At that time, it was stated that planning for the event had been underway for five months. Coca Cola agreed to sponsor the event, covering an estimated $18.8 million in operating costs. More than 700 other companies, including CITIBank, McDonalds, Ticketmaster, and Safeway, sponsored and marketed the event. Hands Across America was unrelated to a previous, unsuccessful project of the same name which attempted to organize a human chain across the country to mark the Bicentennial on July 4, 1976. The 1976 plan was unable to raise enough funds and succeeded only in setting up approximately 8 to 10 miles of chains in and around Chicago. USA for Africa organizers said that they had never heard of the earlier effort until after announcing their plan. Marvin J. Rosenblum, who had conceived of the idea in 1975 and spent a year trying to bring it to fruition, said he found it "hard to believe" that no one in the organization remembered his heavily promoted campaign. However, he was unable to take legal action because his trademark on the name "Hands Across America" had since expired. The song was written by Marc Blatte, John Carney, and Larry Gottlieb, and featured lead vocals by session singers Joe Cerisano and Sandy Farina, and the band Toto. On January 18, dozens of celebrities joined hands with hundreds of locals on the main street of Taft, California to film a music video for the song, which was set to first air during the Super Bowl XX halftime show the following week. However, Michael Jackson intervened at a USA for Africa board meeting days before the Super Bowl to insist that "We Are the World" should be played during the broadcast instead. As a result, while portions of the Taft video were seen during the halftime show, the "Hands Across America" song was not heard. The song was distributed to approximately 8,000 radio stations for a nationwide simulcast on the morning of Good Friday, as had been done with "We Are the World" on Good Friday 1985. "Hands Across America" ultimately peaked at #65 on the Billboard Hot 100. Individual participants in Hands Across America were asked to donate $10 for the opportunity to join the chain, although many people who had not paid joined the line anyway. Celebrities and companies could sponsor portions of the line at a cost of $13,200 per mile, since it was estimated that 1,320 people would be needed to cover a mile of the route. Recording artist Prince was reportedly the first person to "buy a mile" in this way. Donna Brazile, future chair of the Democratic National Committee, was the director of Hands Across America in Washington, D. C. Kragen compared the structure of the organization to "pyramid selling", with organizers at the state, regional, and local levels responsible for smaller and smaller segments of the chain, then "mile captains" overseeing each mile and "tenth of a mile captains" at the lowest level. Bus rides were organized to transport large groups of people to distant spots along the route. Local organizers and communities the chain passed through, many of which had never hosted thousands of out of town visitors before, were responsible for providing food and portable toilets for visitors. No major incidents or injuries were reported during the event, and no claims were filed against Hands Across America's insurance policy.|frame align=right|frame width=550|frame height=300|type=line|from=Hands Across America. map

The eastern end of the chain was at Battery Park in New York City, within view of the Statue of Liberty. The first person in the line was 6 year old Amy Sherwood, whose family had been living in a local welfare hotel until recently. Notable participants in Battery Park included New York governor Mario Cuomo, mayor Ed Koch, Cardinal John O'Connor, Senator Alfonse D'Amato, Yoko Ono and her son Sean Lennon, Harry Belafonte, Helen Hayes, Lily Tomlin, Bella Abzug, Kool and the Gang, Ken Kragen, and Liza Minnelli. On the George Washington Bridge, Brooke Shields and Christy Fichtner (who had been selected as Miss USA five days earlier) stood at the sign marking the border between New York and New Jersey. The date and time chosen for the event inadvertently conflicted with another charity fundraiser, Sport Aid, a global event organized by USA for Africa on the same day. Since Hands Across America was much better publicized in the United States, only 4,000 runners participated the New York City portion for Sport Aid, which coincided with a special session on world hunger at the United Nations. In New Jersey, the route passed through Newark, New Brunswick, Princeton, and Trenton. At Drumthwacket, the New Jersey governor's mansion in Princeton, Governor Thomas Kean was joined by Senator Frank Lautenberg and Joan Rivers. In Philadelphia, the line looped around the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Grover Washington, Jr. stood in Fairmount Park, while Pennsylvania governor Dick Thornburgh and several members of the Philadelphia Eagles participated in front of Independence Hall. Joe Frazier Jr. joined in front of his father's gym on Broad Street. Due to a high level of interest in South Jersey, a spur was added to the route, crossing the Benjamin Franklin Bridge from Philadelphia into Camden, New Jersey and extending southeast as far as Haddonfield before looping back into Pennsylvania. Dionne Warwick joined the line on the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, while Tony Danza and Lainie Kazan participated in Camden. At Delaware Park near Wilmington, horse racing was suspended for 15 minutes so that the line could cross through the racetrack. Pedestrians were not permitted to stand on the Thomas J. Hatem Memorial Bridge between Perryville and Havre de Grace, Maryland, so a group of scuba divers connected the line underneath the surface of the Susquehanna River. In Baltimore, the line passed by the Inner Harbor and Pratt Street Power Plant. In Washington, D. C., the route passed by the United States Capitol, where Rev. Billy Graham spoke; Reagan had previously said he would not join the chain. However, in the days leading up to the event, the president made a controversial remark that "where there is hunger you have to determine that that is probably because of a lack of knowledge on the part of the people as to what things are available". Shortly after his comments were criticized in the press, Reagan announced that he and his family had decided at the last minute to join Hands Across America, although press secretary Larry Speakes denied that there was any connection between the two events. White House staff, Secret Service agents, and members of the press connected the chain through the secured North Lawn of the executive mansion. Reagan's participation was itself criticized by activists, who said that the president's cuts to social programs had dramatically worsened hunger in America. Mitch Snyder led a chain of his own on the opposite side of Lafayette Square in protest, with activists chanting at the president, "What about tomorrow? What about tonight?" Rev. Jesse Jackson stated, "He should not be in the line. His policies created the line." The easternmost reported gaps in the chain were in western Maryland. A seven mile segment along Route 355 southeast of Frederick was canceled entirely because it was considered too dangerous, and further breaks were observed in Hagerstown. The Maryland state director of Hands Across America said that 90 percent of the route through the state was covered. While the official route lined up dozens of steelworkers along the Sixth Street Bridge, locals organized "Boats Across the Allegheny", with dozens of watercraft lined up side by side connecting Fort Duquesne Boulevard to Three Rivers Stadium. The greatest number of participants in the chain of any state were in Ohio, where the route zig zagged from Youngstown through Akron and Cleveland to Toledo, then returned eastward to Columbus before proceeding southwest to Dayton and Cincinnati. The Ohio Department of Highway Safety took an active role in coordinating its segment of the route and ensuring the safety of participants. Notable participants in the state included Celeste Holm and Dr. Benjamin Spock in Cleveland, Don Novello in Lorain, Ohio governor Richard Celeste and senator John Glenn in Columbus, and David Copperfield in Cincinnati. At SeaWorld Ohio in Aurora, two orcas and their trainers, along with a sea lion and a baby Magellanic penguin, took part. The event fell on the same day as the Indianapolis 500, leading to concerns about the logistics of bringing the route through Indianapolis. The Indy 500 was rained out and postponed until the following weekend, while the weather also caused lower turnout than expected for the city's segment of Hands Across America. A widely reported human interest story was that of the small town of Denver, Indiana, where thousands of residents of the larger city of Fort Wayne were expected to join the line, and the route was extended through Denver to accommodate them. Michigan City, and Gary. In Chicago, Illinois, the route ran up King Drive and Michigan Avenue to the Oak Street Beach and Lincoln Park, proceeding from there to the western and southwestern suburbs. Notable participants in the city included Oprah Winfrey at Cermak Road, mayor Harold Washington on a stretch of Michigan Avenue lined with over 1,000 city employees, Illinois governor James R. Thompson and Super Bowl XX champion quarterback Jim McMahon on the Magnificent Mile, Senator Alan J. Dixon in Lincoln Park, and Cardinal Joseph Bernardin in Orland Park. The route through central Illinois passed through Champaign, Decatur, The small town of Onarga rejected event organizers, and participants who were supposed to be bussed there were redirected to other areas. In Champaign, where the 1985 Chicago Bears had trained for their successful Super Bowl run four months earlier, Walter Payton sponsored a mile of the line, but was unable to attend due to the team's spring practice in Platteville, Wisconsin. The line crossed the Clark Bridge over the Mississippi River from Alton, Illinois to St. Louis, Missouri, where Illinois senator Paul Simon and Missouri state legislator Mary Kasten joined hands at the state line. In St. Louis, the line passed underneath the Gateway Arch, where actors Kathleen Turner and Eric Douglas joined mayor Vincent C. Schoemehl. A segment near the village of Old Appleton, Missouri, led by activist Wayne Cryts and sponsored by Monsanto, was designated the "American Family Farmer Mile", and 29,000 pounds of food (purchased with grant money raised from Farm Aid) was distributed to struggling farmers who joined the line there. At Cape Girardeau, the route crossed the Mississippi again, then roughly followed the river's east bank through southern Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Kentucky's segment included Ryan's Hope stars Christopher Durham and Malcolm Groome in Bardwell and Clinton, respectively, and Mel McDaniel and Peter Fonda at the Tennessee state line in Fulton. The official midpoint of the line was in Ripley, Tennessee, where 14,000 people gathered along a three mile stretch of U. S. Route 51 alongside Judy Collins, Brenda Lee, the Marshall Tucker Band,

In Memphis, the line passed down historic Beale Street, where people grabbed the hands and ankles of the Elvis Presley statue to include him in the chain. Ruby Wilson joined in front of the W. C. Handy statue nearby. but some of the largest gaps in the state appeared west of Forrest City. Participants in Dallas included Mickey Leland, Tony Bennett, and Tony Dorsett. Along US Highway 287, which the route followed for a remote stretch of hundreds of miles that passed through Wichita Falls and Amarillo, the roadway was dotted with clusters of people at every mile marker connected by ropes. The Forester Sisters performed on the line in Amarillo. Kenny Rogers and Lee Greenwood stood on the back of a flatbed truck straddling the border between Texas and New Mexico in the ghost town of Glenrio. Thousands of people gathered in and around Glenrio, and the band Renegade performed for the crowd there. At Albuquerque's train station, where a transcontinental Amtrak train happened to stop at the appointed time, conductors and passengers joined hands at the depot. West of Albuquerque, a "bikers' mile" featured Mickey Jones. Alex English and Holly Palance participated in Grants. New Mexico saw a larger proportion of its population turn out than any other state along the route, although this still represented less than half of the people needed to complete the chain through the state. In Navajo, Arizona, a segment designated as one of the event's "toughest miles" to fill was sponsored by American Express, and over 1,000 American Express employees and family members joined hands with local members of the Navajo Nation, Ray Parker, Jr., Hervé Villechaize, and Arizona governor Bruce Babbitt to ensure the mile was unbroken. Ed Begley, Jr. and Thelma Houston stood at Sunset Point near Black Canyon City, north of Phoenix. As is typical for Memorial Day weekend in Arizona, temperatures were over 90 degrees on the day of the event. Organizers canceled the portion of the route from Tonopah to Ehrenberg, on the border with California, due to concerns about extreme heat. To symbolically complete the connection, helicopters took off from both towns at the appointed time and met in Vicksburg, where a time capsule was buried in a ceremony headlined by Robert Goulet. In Blythe, California, an estimated 10,000 people gathered from the Arizona state border to downtown, including Senator Alan Cranston, Bo Derek, Shelley Duvall, and Anson Williams. The segment of the route through the Colorado Desert from Blythe to Indio was canceled due to concerns about extreme heat, and a "human energy ribbon" stretched across this 100 mile gap. However, hundreds of people still turned out in 100 degree heat in Desert Center, near the middle of the canceled stretch, joined by the band REO Speedwagon. Bob Seger and Charlene Tilton joined the chain in Riverside. Inside the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, televangelist Rev. Robert Schuller led 3,000 parishioners in joining hands, including Pat Boone and state attorney general John Van de Kamp. In Anaheim, Disneyland allowed the line to enter its gates, where park employees and their family members joined hands with costumed characters and Walt Disney Company president Frank Wells. Richard Dreyfuss, Celebrities in Long Beach included Lyle Alzado, Shari Belafonte, Whoopi Goldberg, Dudley Moore, Donny Osmond, Daniel J. Travanti, Cicely Tyson, Ben Vereen, Raquel Welch, Beach Boys tribute band Papa Doo Run Run performed at the Long Beach celebration, joined by Alzado, Loggins, and emerging actor John Stamos. At the end of the line were Bill Jones, Mary Hally, and their five children, residents of a local homeless shelter. and of the number of people who actually participated. A prominent example was "Hands Across Massachusetts", a four mile loop through Boston and Cambridge, which was reportedly the only such event to receive the official endorsement of the national Hands Across America organization. Senator Ted Kennedy spoke at the event, where he criticized President Reagan's approach toward the issue of hunger. The day before the official event, a chain stretching the length of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California was staged, featuring mayoral candidate John Molinari and future mayor Willie Brown. Another unofficial but widely reported event took place at Rahway State Prison in New Jersey, where approximately 500 inmates staged "Hands Across the Big Yard" and raised money for Hands Across America amongst themselves. After a Hands Across America organizer presented a video about the event to the prisoners, a group of inmates offered to fill gaps in the Southwest. When that idea was rejected, the inmates staged their own chain inside the prison.

Organizers had hoped that Hands Across America would raise between $50 million and $100 million, making it one of the largest charity fundraisers in history. Ahead of the event, Ken Kragen downplayed these expectations, saying "Ten million is a success. Twenty million is an extreme success. Fifty million would basically parallel or outdo 'We Are the World'." The total amount of donations was estimated at $36.4 million, with $27.8 million coming from individuals and another $8.6 million donated by corporations. After covering operating costs, this left approximately $15 million to be distributed to charities. The process of paying the organization's bills and choosing recipient charities took months, and by the end of 1986, no funds had been distributed, drawing criticism from charity groups. The first batch of grants was given out in January 1987, and the last of the remaining money was distributed in November of that year. In selecting charities to receive the money, USA for Africa generally preferred those seeking to produce long term changes rather than those aiming to provide immediate relief. Hands Across America was among the last of a series of widely publicized, celebrity sponsored charity events in the mid 1980s, following Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas? ", USA for Africa's "We Are the World", Live Aid, Farm Aid, and Comic Relief USA. By the time Hands Across America was staged, many Americans were growing skeptical of the effectiveness and purpose of these events, and organizers of such events grew concerned that their appeals could have diminishing returns. Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof announced in October 1985 that he would step back from charity work, saying that "compassion fatigue has very much set in". Geldof's comment and the term "compassion fatigue" were frequently used by media outlets in questioning whether Hands Across America's efforts to raise awareness would have any long term impact. A scathing article about Hands Across America and similar events in The New Republic went further, arguing that this wave of celebrity charity events reflected a loss of faith in the ability of politicians and government institutions to solve problems, and was doomed to fail because it could not command the amount of money or long term focus needed for significant change. After the runaway success of "We Are the World" and the more modest fundraising of Hands Across America, the USA for Africa Foundation adopted a lower profile, moving out of its offices in Century City and cutting operating costs. Its next fundraising effort, "Brands Across America", encouraged shoppers to send in proof of purchase of food products, in exchange for which the manufacturer would donate a portion of the proceeds to USA for Africa. In the movie, Hands Across America inspires the Tethered to overthrow their unwitting oppressors and form a human chain of their own.