  This provides greater insight into not only Du Bois’s claim that “manifestly some of the great races of today—particularly the Negro race—have not as yet given to civilization the full spiritual message which they are capable of giving (Du Bois 1897, quoted from Du Bois 1903, 26), but also Cooper’s claim (five years before Du Bois) that “Each race has its badge, its exponent, its message, branded in its forehead by the great Master’s hand which is its own peculiar keynote, and its contribution to the harmony of the nations” (VAJC, 122). For Cooper, the delivery of each message requires contact and conflict, but not brutal repression and racial domination. Cooper is clear that prejudice and race domination only leads to immobility and death. Implicit in her argument is a rejection of the complete assimilation (or even amalgamation) of one race into another. (This is also a theme that is taken up later by Du Bois.)  Cooper constantly reiterates the point that race differences are intended to encourage races to sharpen or improve one another through equilibrium, conflict, and harmony, not through domination and hierarchy, or even assimilation. We see the significance of God even in Cooper’s philosophy of history as it relates to conflict and progress when she explains, “the God of battles is in the conflicts of history. The evolution of civilization is in His care, eternal progress His delight” (VAJC, 129).