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Organization was, unsurprisingly, alogistical nightmare, particularly in that pre-internet, precell phone age.
When the form is returned, the New YorkTimesreported, the organizations computer assigns a particular one-mile segment.
(We were really excited about our computers in the 1980s.)
(Senator Ted Kennedy complained that the route bypassed New England).
Some evenwonderedif so many people linking bodies could prove an electrical danger.
And then there was the question of star power.
Other Washington, D.C., participantsincludedReverend Billy Graham, Mary Lou Retton, and Coretta Scott King.
Migrant workers organized a 51-mile stretch in Texas.
The chainalso included50 Abraham Lincoln impersonators in Springfield, Illinois, and 54 Elvises in Memphis.
The AP reported five weddings along the chain.
U.S.A. for Africa spent about the same amount to mount the event.
That relatively small payout, and the goofy music video, were Hands Across Americas legacy until now.
