Tennessee was never as solid Dem as the rest of the former Confederate states. There was a solid block of Republicans making up the first two Congressional seats going back to after we were readmitted to the Union. The 1st district hasn't elected a 'Rat since Robert Love Taylor in 1878, and the ancestral 2nd (centered around Knoxville) last sent a 'Rat in 1852 (it was a Whig stronghold before it became Republican), one of the longest non-'Rat reigns in the country, if not the longest. In 1920, 5 out of the 10 Congressmen were Republican and we also elected a Governor, too (we might've won a Senate race if there had been a race that year), but the state reverted back in '22 and it took about 50 years before we regained a majority of the delegation and elected another Governor again. Much more interesting detail to go into, but that'd take too long...
"I like the tribute to black Republicans section of your profile. Very interesting! Oscar DePriest was the last decent Congressman in district (of course, back then the district didn't snake into the suburbs like it does now, nor was it controlled by the Chicago Dem machine)."
Yup.
"DePriest voted against FDR's new deal program in 1933, saying it was socialist (like any good Republican would do!) Unfortuantely, it cost him his seat and marked the beginning of blacks going to the Dem plantantion. If only we could go back in time and shift a few votes in the 1934 election!"
Well, even if DePriest had eked out a win in '34, it was all but certain he would've lost in the disaster of '36, where all but the most hardcore GOP districts went 'Rat (we elected something like 89 out of 435 members, down from a high of 300 in 1920). The man who defeated DePriest, Arthur W. Mitchell, was the very first Black Democrat ever elected to Congress. A Black Democrat was a rather strange concept at the time, I can't imagine wanting to share the same party label with some of the most rabid racists in Congress then ('Rats all). It wasn't an easy road to hoe for DePriest dealing with racism (as he was the first Black member elected from a non-Southern state, and the first Black elected since 1898 when he came in 30 years later), but it must've been even more difficult for Mitchell (who would be succeeded by the more famous and long-serving Bill Dawson, who had been a Republican switching right after the start of the Depression). Mitchell, too, probably had been a Republican right up to about 1930. Both DePriest, Mitchell, and Dawson were all native Southerners, where it was utterly unthinkable to be a Democrat. The latter two, I'd imagine, switched because they realized the GOP was heading to minority party status and that would mean scarcely little leverage for Black interests (a smart move at the time). We may start to see that similar realization take hold in this decade (especially in Southern states where Black 'Rat legislators now in the minority will and can be ignored, having no leverage at all).