Michael Branner Driver (1868–1942) was Mayor of

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

from 1927 to 1930, and Sheriff of the

Alameda County Sheriff's Office The Alameda County Sheriff's Office (ACSO) is a law enforcement agency serving Alameda County, California. ACSO is accredited through the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA), the American Correctional Association (ACA ...

Alameda County Alameda County ( ) is a List of counties in California, county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 1,682,353, making it the 7th-most populous county in the state and List ...

, from 1930 to 1939. He resigned as Mayor of Berkeley when he was appointed Sheriff, replacing Sheriff

Burton Becker Burton F. Becker was the police chief of Piedmont, California in the early 20th century and Kailiff of Ku Klux Klan No. 9 in Oakland, California.Cray, Ed, ''Chief justice: a biography of Earl Warren'', New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997. pp 52–5 ...

, a member of the local

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...

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who was convicted for corruption and sent to

San Quentin Prison San Quentin State Prison (SQ) is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in Marin County. Opened in July 1852, San Quentin is the ...

. Michael Branner Driver was born August 4, 1868, in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

. He came to Berkeley in 1905 from Colorado. He married Melissa Newkirk. They had a daughter Dixie and a son Quigley. Michael Driver died July 17, 1942, in Berkeley.

References

* ''Berkeley Gazette'', July 18, 1942 * ''Oakland Tribune'', December 24, 2007 Mayors of Berkeley, California 1868 births 1942 deaths People from Berkeley, California American police chiefs Alameda County sheriffs {{California-mayor-stub