At 3pm, on May 25, 1986, 6.5 million people across the United States did the impossible.

They formed a continuous human chain, 4,125 miles long, 6,638 kilometers, and it connected

New York to Los Angeles.

Why?

Because in the middle of a decade of economic hardship and political division, they wanted

to come together under one flag to fight something bigger than themselves.

Hunger and homelessness in the world's richest country.

I'm Alex Kratowski, and I was there 35 years ago today at Hands Across America.

I want to know what has happened since and whether something so impossible could ever

be done again.

This is reaching back to Hands Across America for the documentary for the BBC World Service.

Music producer Ken Cragan was the mastermind behind this extraordinary idea, but Hands Across

America was not the first time he had made a noise for charity.

In January of 1985, I had organized We Are the World, and it had become, at that moment,

probably the biggest record of all time.

We Are the World was a charity single released in 1985 to raise money for the famine in Ethiopia.

37 of the US's biggest pop stars of the time formed a supergroup called USA for Africa.

The song and the cause captured people's attentions.

We raised 64 million the first year too, and we're well over 100 million.

We Are the World still brings in hundreds of thousands of dollars in downloads every

single year.

But in show business, you are only as good as your last hit.

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