Detroit mayoral candidate David Bing speaking with audience members (Photo: Minehaha Forman)

DETROIT — With city voters going to the polls today for the special mayoral primary, one of the front-runners, David Bing, has been introducing himself to the city’s electorate. The chief executive of Bing Automotive Group recently moved from suburban Farmington to a riverfront condo in Detroit and has been promoting his business acumen as his greatest strength to lead Detroit. But he’s also been telling his personal story beyond his corporate persona.

At Friday’s annual family banquet at the Tabernacle Missionary Church, Bing, 65, addressed the 400 people in attendance with a 30-minute speech that highlighted his biography, focusing on how his racial background as an African-American and his religion as a Baptist have influenced his life.

After accepting a basketball scholarship from Syracuse University in 1962, Bing moved from Washington, D.C., to New York and said he experienced culture shock.

““From kindergarten to the 12th grade, everybody in my school system looked like me. I never went to school with anybody who was white,” he told the all-black audience. “When I went to Syracuse, what a rude awakening I had.”

Bing said there were so few blacks at Syracuse at that time that he felt alienated.

“Syracuse was a school of about 14,000 and we had 100 African-Americans,” he said.

Bing said he faced many social challenges attending Syracuse, especially getting used to living in a predominantly Jewish community where there were more synagogues than churches.

“It was tough, socially, up there, I’ll tell ya,” he told the audience, who received him well. “My brother and sisters made it very clear to me that you gotta stay in your race. They said, ‘Don’t get up there and act crazy.’”

Bing’s father was raised in the South, one of 13 children. Bing said his father dropped out of school after the eighth grade because he had to work a cotton farm.

If it hadn’t been for his basketball scholarship, Bing said he would not have been able to afford school. He noted that he was the only one of his siblings with a college diploma.

“When I came to Detroit, I didn’t have any friends, didn’t have any family; I didn’t know anyone,” said Bing, a high-scoring guard who played nine seasons for the Detroit Pistons during his 12-year National Basketball Association career.

After being first denied a mortgage because of his age and profession, Bing said he felt hurt. “I made $50,000 a year in my rookie year. Today the average [NBA player] salary is $1.8 million.”

Bing said after he retired as a basketball player, he started his own auto supplier company, which at the time was not an easy feat.

“”We didn’t see any blacks in the business back then,” he said. “I hired 500 people in the city; 80 percent of my employees are African-American, and 72 percent of them live in the city of Detroit.

In closing his speech, Bing distanced himself from his opponents in the mayoral race.

“I’m not a politician, don’t wanna be,” he said. “I’m not a bureaucrat, don’t wanna be. I’m a businessperson.”

Bing has faced criticism in his mayoral bid because prior to announcing his candidacy, he lived in the suburbs. One of his companies, Bing Metals Group, faced 52 Occupational Safety and Health Administration violations in 2005, racking up more than $100,000 in fines.

Bing’s experience in running a successful business and his solid corporate connections in the city have made him an attractive candidate. According to local polling on MichiganLiberal.com, Bing and incumbent Kenneth V. Cockrel Jr. are the favorites to win in today’s primary election.

In today’s primary, 15 mayoral candidates will go head to head, and the two who get the most votes will face off in the May 5 special election.