Willis was born on June 10, 1916, in Washington, D.C., to Tiney Willis and Charles E. Smith. He was the brother of Ederson, Julia, Thelma, William, Evelyn and Clayton. In the 1930s, he met writer Langston Hughes and Marxist philosopher Raya Dunayevskaya which prompted him to devote his life to socialist reform. In the 1950s he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Lillian.
