In the mid 80's I remember taking my baby daughter to somewhere in LA where we met with tons of others and held hands at a certain time. Do you remember what this event was called?
— Luvnlifeqd
Are you testing me here, or where you high on some really illegal substance that day ... week ... year? In any event, the hand-holding lovefest that occurred in the mid-80s was Hands Across America.
On May 25, 1986, 5-1/2 million people joined hands in a 4,124-mile-long line from New York to Los Angeles. For fifteen minutes they held hands and sang "Hands Across America" in Hands Across America, an event to raise money for America's poor and homeless.
The event was the brainchild of Ken Kragen, founder of USA For Africa, and a New York public relations executive named Geoff Nightingale. After its conception in April of 1985, the Hands project faced the problem of overcoming the mistakes of a similar event a decade earlier.
In that instance, a Chicago group had attempted to form a human chain across America as part of the 1976 Bicentennial celebration. The event was all voluntary, even to the point of being organized by volunteers. It failed completely and never took place.
For Hands Across America, it was decided that corporate sponsorship was the way to go. With big-time corporate funding from corporations such as Citibank, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and Safeway; Hands Across America was able to finance both the publicity blitz and the enormous organization needed to pull off the event. Video feeds and coverage were donated by ESPN and MTV.
To actually raise the money for the poor and homeless, people were asked to donate at least $10 each to stand in the line, and corporations could sponsor lengths of the line at $15,000 to $50,000 per mile. Corporate sponsors would be responsible for organizing their sections of the line, and could sell t-shirts and memorabilia throughout their areas. In all, 5,442,960 people and several hundred corporations signed up. (In addition, an estimated 1,500,000 people who didn't or couldn't participate formed their own separate lines.)
Because of the massive scale of the project, the line was broken into about 200 mini-lines, each 20 miles long. Each mini-line had its own organizers, who worked in conjuction with each other to connect the 200 separate lines into the massive coast-to-coast line.
In many places it appeared that the line would not succeed, attendence was sparse at first, but in the final minutes the real flood of participants began to pour in, filling many of the gaps. Not all were filled, however. There were several gaps ranging in size from one to several miles, especially in the desert regions. Some of these gaps remained empty, others were filled with balloons and ribbons to stand in for people.
It is not known exactly how much money was raised by Hands Across America, but the event brought together people of all races, creeds, and religions for a 15-minute period of harmony.
Dear Eddie,
My husband thinks I am nuts, but I know that in the eighties there was a group of Latino singers that were called Minuedo Men or were commonly referred to as Minuedo Men. Or there was at least a group of singers, that if a guy looked like one of them we called him a Minuedo Man. Am I really nuts and getting senile or what?
— Tam
I don't know if your husband is calling you nuts because of the name you've given the band or if he doesn't believe the band ever existed. Because, there isn't a group that has ever existed to my knowledge (which is immense) called Minuedo Men. What I believe you are talking about is Menudo, the all-Latino, all-youthful boys band.
The group was originally formed with a handful of adorable Puerto Rican adolescents in 1977. The rule of the group was you had to leave once you turned 16. So, there've been more than 30 incarnations of Menudo. It wasn't until the late 90s that the age restriction and the requirement to be Puerto Rican was lifted.
Menudo was the first Latin group to achieve success all over the world. The original members were the brothers Carlos, Oscar and Ricky Melendez, as well as Nefty and Fernando Sallaberry. Unfortunately, the group didn't make their big splash in America until the mid 80s ... after the original members of the group had already left ... with their big record "Reaching Out" in 1984.
The 1984 album was the first to have English-language versions of their music. And it was the first to feature Ricky Martin, who joined the group in July 1984. Of course, only someone living under a rock wouldn't know this hottie-boombalottie today, but back then he was best known for his Menudo gig. He left the group in 1989 (he was 18!!!) so he could persue a solo career, an acting career and then a solo career again (which didn't skyrocket until he started shaking his bon-bon in Versace duds).
You can get a glimpse of the Menudo discography here!
