Detroit's Ditto

Most Negro leaders in recent years have been stigmatized as either Uncle Toms or fire-eating militants. As a result, there are few who can work in the upper echelons of white society while retaining their independence and the respect of the blacks on the street. One black leader who has succeeded in that ambivalent role is Frank Ditto, 39, a community organizer of the East Side ghetto of Detroit's inner city.

The burly, brooding Ditto, who prowls the streets in a dashiki, arouses fear or hatred in many whites. Detroit's police and school officials see him as an ir responsible agitator. However, in the boardroom of New Detroit Inc., the city's branch of the antipoverty Urban Coalition, Ditto sits on a 40-member board with people like Henry Ford and the chairman of General Motors. There, Ditto's words--even if couched in the abrasive patois of the ghetto--are listened to carefully. Says William T. Patrick Jr., New Detroit president: "Frank Ditto's is a valid voice. If Ditto is not there, Henry Ford is missing something."

Ghetto Patrol. Ditto directs the East Side Voice of Independent Detroit (ES-VID), a civic action organization that is the moving force behind a dozen "black pride" projects in the slums, where burned-out shops still define the fury of the 1967 riots. ESVID runs a black-uniformed corps of 126 black youths that patrols the ghetto, escorting people through the crime-ridden streets and protecting threatened store owners --both black and white. The patrols also report alleged instances of police brutality and work to clean up their neighborhood. Ditto organized the Political Education Project (PEP), a junior version of city hall made up of black teen-agers who were elected last year by 2,700 high school students. PEP officials serve as liaison with the Detroit city government, start improvement projects and study politics.

Other ESVID projects include a free fortnightly newspaper of 3,000 to 5,000 circulation, a planned theater workshop and a free employment agency.

The Call. Ditto was chopping 500 Ibs. of cotton a day in his native Texas when he was 13. He has been speaking up for the poor and the black since the day in 1961 when he left his Chicago taxi-driving job to join a school demonstration. Since then he has been arrested 18 times. He became a community organizer and marched for 155 consecutive days with Dick Gregory in 1964 and 1965.

Ditto was called to Detroit just prior to the 1967 riots by a coalition of 36 mainly white Protestant and Catholic churches on the East Side to set up a grass-roots organization. Today, with a staff of five, he operates ESVID on $65,000 a year from local businessmen and churches and has also received a $50,000 grant from New Detroit.

Ditto seldom minces his words. Of all the city's legitimate black leaders, he is the most aggressive in presenting grievances against ghetto schools; he is the most strident in denouncing racism. So rough-spoken has he been at times that the city administration has asked New Detroit to curb him. His defenders say that his manner is necessary for his effectiveness. "The white people who work privately with him say he is cooperative and constructive," says the community relations director of one automobile manufacturer. The ministers who brought Ditto to Detroit support his tactics. Says a black former Salvation Army officer, the Rev. Bob Baldwin: "We need a thousand Frank Dittos on the East Side."

Significant Force. Ditto's patrol corpsmen, with their militaristic uniforms, are distrusted by many white city authorities. The patrol members, who act tough and often harass cops, do not carry weapons, and on balance have probably done more good than harm. "These are guys who would ordinarily be out on the street drinking wine, breaking bottles and making trouble," says Ditto in their defense.

Ditto justifies his involvement in ghetto controversies. "Wherever black people are receiving injustice, that's where

1 belong," he says. "If a guy on the street is being brutalized by a police officer, that should be my concern. It's the whole goddamned thing of 'don't get involved.' " By getting involved, Ditto is molding powerless people into a significant force. Despite the reservations of many whites, the East Side clergymen and the blue-chip board of New Detroit are betting it will be a force for good. Says Baldwin: "We are nobodies. Frank Ditto is a nobody. We must come together at this level--a thousand nobodies."

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