age, leaving 11,846 whites constituting 67.5% of the total white population. However innocent may have been the board's aim in distributing concentration of black population into the various districts, the net result has been to dilute and fractionate the black voting strength in the election of public officials chosen in district balloting.
The defendant supervisors contend that their plan is meritorious and should be approved since it achieves a division of the total population in as near equal proportions for each district as possible in faithful compliance with the one-man, one-vote rule, the sole criterion for constitutional redistricting. The plaintiffs contend that the plan blatantly violates both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments since it is racially motivated and inspired by white incumbents who desire to be reelected as countythe western edge of Adams, and Greenwood near the eastern boundary of Leflore;
(e) Large, sparsely rural areas comprise most of the land mass of each county.
In Adams County, the board engaged an outside consultant, Comprehensive Planners, Inc. (CPI), to prepare a redistricting plan taking into account not only population but road mileage, land area and other factors designed to equalize the responsibilities of each supervisor. Describing the plan, the Court stated:
"As the new plan was developed, therefore, each district converged in spoke-like fashion from a broad rural base into the City of Natchez. This dissection of the population concentration of the county resulted in an equal allocation of the population of Natchez among the new districts. Under the population figures available to CPI in 1970, prior to the