Following news of Mike Ilitch's death on Saturday, this story of his generosity is quite powerful and he didn't do it for the publicity.As memories flowed on Saturday with some tears mixed in, there were many mentions of the Ilitch family generosity with things like youth hockey in Michigan.

But very quietly, Ilitch paid, for about the last ten years of her life, for the downtown Detroit apartment of Rosa Parks, mother of the modern civil rights movement.

In 1994, Parks was 81 years old, and was beaten and robbed at her Detroit apartment. Those around her worked to find her a new, safer place. Ilitch heard about it, and offered to play for a place at Riverfront Apartments, indefinitely. Parks died in 2005.

The story came out in 2014 in Sports Business Daily in 2014, but it is being remember again with Ilitch's passing.

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