Ethel Martin Bolden

Bolden retired from Dreher in 1982, but continued to work in the local library community. She was the secretary of the Richland County Public Library board of trustees, and oversaw major projects such as construction of the Northeast branch, relocation of Eastover and Wheatley branches, and fundraising for the main branch.

Bolden served on the staff of an institute held by Allen University, "Institute for Elementary Librarians" in 1969, where she gave a lecture titled "Evaluation, Selection and Acquisition of Materials for the Elementary School Library." She was a member of the Greater Columbia Community Relations Council, a multiracial taskforce founded by Mayor Lester Bates. She also served on the South Carolina Council on Human Relations and on the board of directors of its successor, the Greater Columbia Community Relations Council.

Bolden educated generations of residents in Columbia, South Carolina. Bolden established libraries in Columbia's Black elementary schools and emphasized collecting books about Black history. She wrote, "It is now an established fact that the lack of a knowledge of the history of black Americans does harm not only to blacks but to whites as well. A lack of black history leaves the white student only half educated in American history, and only half prepared for the American future." Her dedication continued when she integrated Dreher High School as its head librarian in 1968.

In 1968 she became the head librarian at Dreher High School. Her belief in free education for all students led her to open up the library's collection. She and guidance counselor Francena Robinson were the first two African Americans to integrate the faculty.

Bolden completed her Master of Science degree in library science from Atlanta University in 1959, after writing her master's thesis on Susan Dart Butler.

In 1944, she became Waverly's first teacher-librarian, where she taught students part-time and established the first Black elementary school library in the city. She continued to supervise the establishment of libraries in most of the city's other Black elementary schools. She became the first librarian at W.A. Perry Middle School.

She worked at Waverly Elementary school as an "intern teacher" for one year before she married Charles F. Bolden in 1941, and had to leave because married women could not be teachers.

Martin attended Booker T. Washington High School from 1932 to 1936. She also attended Barber–Scotia College, where she worked as a library assistant. She received her Bachelor of Science from Johnson C. Smith University.

Martin spent time between her mother's house in Columbia and Peak, South Carolina, where her paternal grandmother ran a missionary school. Her mother died in 1927, followed by her grandmother in 1929. Martin and her younger brother then lived with various relatives.

Ethel Evangeline Martin Bolden (December 14, 1918 – October 20, 2002) was an African-American librarian, educator, historian, and community leader.

Ethel Evangeline Martin was born December 14, 1918, in Charleston, South Carolina to Ethel Sinkler and Thomas John Martin. Her father moved to Chicago, Illinois during the Great Migration in the early 1920s, but was severely injured in a streetcar accident. Her mother moved the rest of the family to Columbia, South Carolina, where she was hired as the superintendent of the Fairwold Industrial School for Delinquent Negro Girls, an organization founded in part by Celia Dial Saxon.

Martin married Charles F. Bolden, Sr. (December 16, 1917 – October 18, 1979), in 1941. They remained married until his death in 1979.