In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews Quinton Williams, department chair and professor of physics at Howard University. Williams recounts his childhood and family background in Mississippi, and he describes the importance of science and education in his upbringing. He describes his early interests in math and science and conveys some of the racial politics that he observed growing up. Williams describes his experiences as an undergraduate at Jackson State University and he describes his involvement in the National Conference of Black Physics Students. He explains his developing interest in physics and describes a formative internship at Corning. Williams recounts his decision to pursue a graduate degree at Georgia Tech, where he worked with Rajarshi Roy on Erbium doped fiber amplifiers and laser dynamics. He discusses his postgraduate research work at Bell Labs, and he describes the state of the telecommunications industry in the late 1990s during the fantastic rise of the internet. He describes his work at Lucent and explains his decision to go into business for himself in optical networking and the impact of the technology bubble bursting at the turn of the century. He describes the opportunity to go back to Jackson State to be department chair, where he worked to reverse the decline of the physics program. Williams explains how the situation was representative of physics departments at historically black colleges and universities across the country, and he discusses becoming provost while maintaining his lab at Jackson State. He describes his frequent visits to Washington DC and the events leading to the offer for him to become department chair at Howard, where he was recruited to turn around the program in physics as he had done at Jackson State. Williams shares his perspective on the systemic under-representation of African Americans in students in physics, and he provides ideas on how to address this longstanding challenge. Williams discusses his work as a mentor at Howard and he describes how he set up his lab at Howard. At the end of the interview, Williams describes how his research is contributing to advances in lithium ion battery technology.