No vacuum was ever abhorred by nature so much as the Reagan-era silence about AIDS in the 1980s. In response, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, or ACT UP, was founded in 1987 in New York City to hector the silence-that-be into paying attention to AIDS. United in Anger: A History of Act-Up is writer Sarah Schulman's presentation of the ACT UP Oral History Project, an archive she co-directs with filmmaker Jim Hubbard. It presents ACT UP's visible, visceral victories: shutting down the FDA for a day; captivating taxpayers on April 15, 1987, with a massive protest at the New York General Post Office; and crashing The CBS Evening News in 1991, upstaging a rather grave-looking Dan Rather with chants of “AIDS is news — fight AIDS, not Arabs!” Schulman — who wrote the first piece on AIDS and the homeless — also will screen an excerpt from Hubbard's upcoming feature film on ACT UP. No oral history was as crucial as this: It's hard to gather them when the voices die before their time. Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Wstwd.; Tues., July 12, 7 p.m., free,(310) 443-7000, hammer.ucla.edu.

Tue., July 12, 7 p.m., 2011

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