decision.
Practically all of the salient facts are uncontradicted or at least not in serious dispute. By the 1970 official census, Leflore County has 42,111 residents, of whom 24,373 (58%) are black, 17,550 (42%) are white and 188 (less than .1%) are of other races. The old supervisors' districts were badly malapportioned largely because of the inclusion of the county's only large municipality, Greenwood (22,400) in populous Beat 3, giving that particular district a population almost twice as great as the other four districts combined.[1] Greenwood's city population is divided almost equally between the races: 11,118 whites and 11,130 blacks. The black population of Greenwood is mainly centered in 11 enumeration districts situated in a 5 square mile area in the southeast portion of Greenwood; this section of thecity has a total black population of 10,763, or 44.2% of the black population in the entire county. No other area of the county is so populated with blacks.
The plan adopted by the board was largely the handiwork of W. L. Kellum, Supervisor of District 3. Kellum resides in Greenwood, is engaged in the gasoline distributing business, and holds B. S. and B. A. college degrees. The hiring of an outside professional consultant to develop a redistricting plan was voted down by the board majority. The two members of the board who favored Kellum's plan, James D. Green and James M. Hooper, Jr., were convinced of his capability to do the work and relied upon him to devise the redistricting proposal, which the board officially adopted, whereby population