His father was the Reverend Smith Cary (d. 1969), founder of the Rising Star Baptist Church and native of Jacksonville, Texas.

Cary was assigned to the USS Cambria and served in the Pacific Theater of World War II, including the invasions of Saipan and Okinawa.

[3] Returning from the war and unable to find radio work as a black man in Jim Crow-era Texas, Cary began a long career in the field of education.

He taught history at Fort Worth's Dunbar High School[4] until 1967, when he became the first black instructor at Tarrant County Junior College.

[5] In the early 1970s, he led a successful crusade to remove Confederate symbols from the UTA campus[2] and was instrumental in establishing a Minorities Cultural Center, focusing on books and materials about black history and the Chicano movement.

[3][7] He then served three terms in the Texas House of Representatives, where he was a member of the county affairs, energy, rules and resolutions, budget and oversight, and government organization committees.

[12] Cary cited local African-American banker and Republican politician William Madison McDonald as a major influence.