Uncrowned Community Builders

Clarence M. Maloney was born in Trinidad, British West Indies, circa 1896. He came to the United States in 1910. He received both his bachelor's and master's degrees from Syracuse University, before going on to study law at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia and at the University at Buffalo.

He came to Buffalo in 1925 after teaching four years at Virginia Union University in Richmond. He was admitted to the state bar in 1927. He was a deputy state attorney general from 1937 to 1945, serving as chief counsel to the State Welfare Board. One of his first actions was to draft a resolution for Governor Herbert Lehman to dissolve the Temporary Emergency Relief Agency of the Depression and put relief under local welfare agencies.

Maloney was named to Buffalo's Board of Community Relations in 1954, become the first black member of the Municipal Housing Authority in 1958 and was appointed assistant city corporation counsel in 1959. He ran, three times unsuccessfully, for political office. He was the second black in Erie County to be nominated for public office when he was Democratic supervisor candidate in the Fifth Ward in 1935. He made two attempts to become the city's first black judge, as a Liberal Party candidate in 1957 and as an independent Civil Rights Party candidate in 1960. he maintained his own private law practice, which he closed in 1969.

Maloney's first wife was Cora P. Maloney, who was the first African American female elected to the Buffalo Common Council. The couple met in Albany, New York and was married in 1945.

Mr. Maloney was a World War I veteran, who was a member of the American Legion. He helped found the Urban League of Buffalo, served as its president and was a longtime member of its board of directors. He was also active as a member of the NAACP and the YMCA.

Following the death of his first wife, Mr. Maloney moved to Lynchburg, Virginia in 1969 with his second wife, Polly. He died on September 19, 1976 at the age of 82.