In August 1906, Storer Normal School hosted (against the wishes of its white administrators) the second conference of the Niagara Movement and the first on American soil. Formed by a group of leading African-American intellectuals, the Niagara Movement planned a campaign to eliminate discrimination based on race. The movement's leader, W. E. B. Du Bois, a sociologist with a PhD, rejected the prevalent theory of "accommodation" promoted by Booker T. Washington, President of the Tuskegee Institute. Washington advocated conciliation and advancement of the "race" rather than confrontation as a means of gaining social equality. He encouraged the teaching of rural and industrial skills at his campus to prepare students for the rural worlds most would return to.