Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Tollie Caution graduated from Lincoln University and the University of Pennsylvania before receiving a Master of Divinity from the Philadelphia Divinity School. He was ordained a deacon in 1929 and a priest the following year. He served as vicar and rector of parishes in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York before being appointed to the National Council in 1945.

Caution worked for much of his career in education and racial relations, serving The Episcopal Church’s Executive Council for over twenty years. He was first appointed in 1945 as secretary for Negro Work, serving in that role until 1952, before taking a position as Assistant Secretary for the Department of Domestic Mission until 1957. This was followed by an eleven- year term as secretary of the Home Department. Among Ethnic Minority Groups, Caution was a crucial bridge figure who patiently brought the church along a path of education.

Active in the Civil Rights Movement, Caution participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, the March from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, and other demonstrations in the South. His recruitment of Black clergy and work with students at the traditionally Black colleges made Caution a well known figure in the church. He served as Assistant Director of the ACI from 1953 to 1957, promoting Black education in the southern states. Caution was active in the Summer Schools of Religious Education program, the Theological Scholarship Committee, and on the ACI Board of Trustees. A life member of the NAACP, Caution also chaired the National Council of Churches Work Among Migrants, served as secretary of the Conference of Church Workers Among Colored People, served on the Joint Committee on Indian Work and the Joint Committee on Race, and was a charter member of the Union of Black Episcopalians.

Marginalized by white leaders who felt he was not sufficiently progressive and forced to retire as secretary in 1968, Caution served as consultant to the Presiding Bishop on pastoral affairs until 1970. Caution was president of the New York Clericus from 1965 to 1968 and was instituted as Canon Emeritus of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York in 1976.