348
Opinion of Souter, J.
plan showing all 12 districts, which Price presented to the Board at its September 3, 1992, meeting, explaining that it showed the possibility of drawing majority-black districts. Id., at 177a-178a (Stipulations 99-100). Several Board members said they could not consider the NAACP plan unless it was presented on a larger map, id., at 178a (Stipulation 100), and both the Board's cartographer and its legal advisor, the parish district attorney, dismissed the plan out of hand because it required precinct splits, id., at 179a (Stipulation 102).
There is evidence that other implications of the NAACP proposal were objectionable to the Board. According to one black leader, Board member Henry Burns told him that while he personally favored black representation on the Board, a number of other Board members opposed the idea.3 App. 142. According to George Price, Board member Barry Musgrove told him that the Board was hostile to the creation of a majority-black district. Id., at 182.4
Although the NAACP plan received no further public consideration, the pace of public redistricting activity suddenly speeded up. At the Board's September 17, 1992, meeting, without asking Joiner to address the possibility of creating any majority-black district, the Board abruptly passed a statement of intent to adopt the Police Jury plan. App. to Juris. Statement 179a-180a (Stipulation 106). At a public
3 One other Board member, Marguerite Hudson, when asked to explain why two of the schools in Plain Dealing, one of the parish's towns, were predominantly black, stated: "[T]hose people love to live in Plain Dealing. . . . And most of them don't want to get a big job, they would just rather stay out there in the country, and stay on Welfare, and stay in Plain Dealing." App. 118.
4 Musgrove denied making the statement. See 1 Tr. 56. If, as the District Court majority suggested, the significance of the latter statement is uncertain, see Bossier Parish School Bd. v. Reno, 907 F. Supp. 434, 448 (DC 1995) (Bossier Parish I), it was tantamount to opposition to the most obvious cure for the admitted dilution; there was in any event nothing ambiguous about the Burns statement.
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