The so-called gangs were largely divided by race or ethnicity, just like San Francisco’s neighborhoods at the time, and apparently inter-gang rumbles were a citywide problem, as was petty crime. Neighborhoods like the Mission, Bayview–Hunters Point, and the Fillmore all were thriving enclaves in a city vastly different from today’s tech-gentrified SF. In this footage documented by filmmaker David Myers, the teenage boy gangs seem almost quaint, with insignias stitched onto letter jackets, and adorably elaborate hairdos. But what’s most endearing is their yearning to help out their communities, despite the stigmas against them, an opportunity afforded them by a program called Youth for Service. The organization got gangs to volunteer for community service projects all across the city. And as American cities rumbled with discontent in the late sixties (see our Long Hot Summer project), San Francisco’s Youth for Service program seemed to provide a buffer, with the city’s 1966 Hunters Point riots being contained with the help of the young men in the Youth for Service program.
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