This the original publication of the eighth annual Negro Year Book for 1931-1932. These were encyclopedic and statistical reports compiled by African-American sociologist Monroe N. Work (1866–1945).

A participant in the Niagara Movement of militant black civil rights advocacy and an ally of W.E.B. Du Bois, Work, nevertheless, accepted the position as Director of the Department of Records and Research at Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (HBCU), a school headed by Du Bois’ some-time opponent and rival, Booker T. Washington.

“In 1908 [Work] began compiling a day-to-day record of the African-American experience. His sources included newspaper clippings, pamphlets, reports, and replies to his own letters of inquiry. All were organized by category and date, providing the data for the Negro Yearbook and the Tuskegee Lynching Report, both of which began in 1912. Each year he distributed the Tuskegee Lynching Report to southern newspapers and leaders to publicize the extent and injustice of lynch law. Under his editorship, nine editions of the Negro Yearbook provided information on discrimination and black progress to educators, researchers, and newspaper editorialists. In 1928 Work supplied another valuable research tool with the publication of A Bibliography of the Negro in Africa and America. It was the first extensive, classified bibliography of its kind.” (ANB)