Because of the proliferation of mass media, the twentieth century seems filled with such cultural dividing lines: the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.; Woodstock and Altamont; Nixon’s resignation; the L.A. riots; the O.J. verdict. Such historic markers might be fundamentally different from one another, but they share one trait: they unite millions of people by revealing some hidden truth about the nation. Woodstock crystallized a powerful urge toward love and peace within American youth culture. Only a few months later, Altamont and the Manson murders shattered that dream with chaotic violence.

Nations are not alone in experiencing such revelatory moments. Cities do, too. Only the scale is different. For Natchez, Mississippi, the trial of Dr. Tom Cage has become such a moment. Though it’s now the twenty-first century, Natchez has always seemed to me a city in search of its century. The trial of Tom Cage might finally place Natchez in time. During Quentin Avery’s opening statement, he promised the jury that before the trial concluded, Dr. Cage would take the stand and tell the whole truth behind the crime of which he has been accused. Mr. Avery also promised that when that happened, men in the courtroom would tremble.

Over the past four days, Judge Elder’s courtroom has been standing room only, with hundreds of would-be spectators turned away every morning. I suspect that today, likely the final day of the trial, throngs will surround the courthouse as Natchezians await Dr. Cage’s testimony and the verdict that will follow.

But why does such an air of expectation pervade the city? Is it only the lurid aspects of the case that have made Natchez ground zero for the entire state this week? I think not. I have come to believe that something far deeper is at work among the people. Natchez is a divided city, as Mississippi is a divided state and America a divided nation. And despite the protests of those who would deny this tragic truth, the root of that division is race—the unfinished business of chattel slavery.

When Tom Cage and Viola Turner reached for each other in 1968, they crossed an invisible boundary, a gulf between two races. They were not the first to do so. The children of such relationships walk the streets of Natchez every day. Their names are written in the pages of dusty Bibles kept out of sight, but kept all the same. In the silent shadows of this town, deep ties exist between black and white, and have for three hundred years. They are ties not only of friendship and love, but of blood. Rarely acknowledged, they’re like roots that spread beneath the soil, out of sight but as strong as any plant growing in the light of the sun. And in this racially fraught era of American history, it may be those roots that offer the best and only chance of bridging the gulf that divides us.