Jerry Mitchell

The Clarion-Ledger

In the dead of one night in 1963, he slipped to the front of a jewelry store in Brookhaven and smashed the window with a glass Coke bottle.

He crawled inside and shined his flashlight on the display cases, stuffing as many jewels as he could into a bag.

When his watch said two minutes were up, he crawled back out and hopped into his still running getaway car.

The driver hit the gas, crossing the railroad tracks in time to beat the train.

Police tried to pursue, but by the time they reached the tracks, the train was blocking their way.

The burglary was one in a series, carried out in Mississippi to raise money for the civil rights movement and similar causes.

Now, a half century later, The Clarion-Ledger has discovered the identity of the man described as a "Robin Hood for the civil rights movement."

His name? Eddie Sandifer.

For most of his life, Sandifer has taken care of others.

In 1955, this native of a rural Louisiana town near where Arkansas and Texas touch began working at a nursing home in Jackson, caring for patients.

He said he became one of the first licensed nursing home administrators in Mississippi.

This son of a fire-and-brimstone preacher also remained passionate about gay rights.

Although he blasted gays from the pulpit, his father never criticized his behavior, Sandifer said.

After the Korean War began, the Army drafted him. Because he had made no secret of being gay, the Army forced him to stay stateside.

In 1958, he traveled to New York to attend the National Convention for the Mattachine Society, established to promote gay rights.

When the hotel refused to allow African-Americans to join the convention, he said the society threatened to picket. The hotel changed its stance.

In Mississippi, he met with NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers, asking about having the NAACP and the Mattachine Society meet together.

He said Evers was reticent.

On the way out, he said he handed a $5 contribution to the NAACP to Evers' secretary.

When she said she would make out a receipt to him, he told her not to bother.

Sandifer knew the grass-roots civil rights organizations desperately needed money. So did the United Farm Workers and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. So did gay rights groups.

But from where? His salary at the nursing home was meager at best. He needed a quicker way.

After closing time one day, he stared inside the window of a jewelry store and noticed many items left in the display cases.

How easy it would be to break a window and grab them, he thought. But to do so, he would need to be fast. Very fast.

Before burglarizing the jewelry store in Brookhaven in 1964, Sandifer spent time there.

He timed how long it took him to drive from the police station to the store. He timed how long it took to drive from the store to the railroad tracks. He figured out exactly when the train ran through town.

About a week after first checking out Brookhaven, Sandifer returned. "Nobody ever knew I was gone at night," he said.

He and his driver returned in an inconspicuous black car he borrowed, he said. "There was nothing to make it stand out."

But when he smashed the window, "all hell broke loose," he said.

He and his driver made it across the tracks in time. The police didn't.

"All the noise, and they never caught me," he said.

Brookhaven proved to be his last because this time he got caught trying to sell the jewels.

In all, he served 16 months in prison, getting out just in time to help take care of his father, who was ill.

Although the statute of limitations has long passed, he remains hesitant to talk about the other stores he burglarized. "Somewhere between Memphis and the Mississippi Gulf Coast," he said.

In all, there were six jewelry stores, "and that was it," he said. "After that, I went to Parchman."

The nursing home where Sandifer worked hired him back as administrator.

He continued giving to civil rights organizations and other causes, this time from the full-time salary he received.

Upset by the mistreatment of the elderly, he started the Jackson branch of the Gray Panthers and challenged federal agency officials.

Moved by his words, some recruited him to help found the Coalition for Nursing Home Reform, he said. "There were certain major chains buying up nursing homes, and they had bad reputations."

Once again, Sandifer began driving in the dead of night into rural areas of Mississippi, this time to rescue those suffering from a new disease, AIDS.

"I'd have to go to places and bring them out — so the neighbors wouldn't know anything," said Sandifer, who began heading the Mississippi Gay Alliance in the 1970s. "I'd have to find housing for them when they came home to die."

Sometimes there were serious threats, he said. "They'd have to move out of a community to keep their houses from being burned down."

In 1987, the alliance began the Sandifer House, which had a dozen beds for AIDS and HIV patients, he said.

The patients included male and female, black and white, he said. "I had files on over 600 people with HIV, most of them in Mississippi. They came from Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas."

The house operated until 1992 when funding ran out.

Two years later, Sandifer became part of the Southern AIDS Commission, now known as the Southern Health Commission.

"When Eddie first started working for me, he told me he would give me 10 years before he retired," recalled Alonzo Dukes, who heads the commission. "Now it's been 20, and he still hasn't retired."

He praised Sandifer as a great pioneer for the civil rights movement, for human rights, and for HIV and AIDS patients.

"He's made so many sacrifices, paid so much out of his own pocket," he said. "I wouldn't trade him for anything."

Now 84, Sandifer is just as broke as he's always been — someone who continues to give money away to causes he believed in.

"Everything I wear is hand me down, except my socks," he laughed.

Although he's not on salary anymore for the Southern Health Commission, he continues to help HIV patients and believes more should be done to assist them with food and rent.

Each day, he works out of his south Jackson house that needs fixing up. "I've got my office," he said. "I'm going to be working till I'm gone."

He has been driven to work for others since he was young, he said. "If I saw something wrong, I tried to correct it."

Informed about Sandifer's role as a "Robin Hood," civil rights leader Dave Dennis, who helped direct Mississippi's Freedom Summer, told The Clarion-Ledger, "I knew about a lot of stuff back then, but I didn't know that."

Human rights activist Bill Chandler has long respected and admired Sandifer, who was always hard working and willing to help, he said. "He has always been one of my favorite people."

He knew nothing about Sandifer being a "Robin Hood."

Dukes had heard something along those lines, but had never questioned him about it.

He said one thing is certain: "Eddie always puts the needs of others before his own."

Sandifer believes his work speaks for itself.

He plans to be cremated, but said if he did have a headstone, this is what it should say: "He did his best."

Contact Jerry Mitchell at (601) 961-7064 or jmitchell@jackson. gannett.com. Follow @jmitchellnews on Twitter.