His Williams family great grandfather was listed in the 1790 U. S. census for Philadelphia City, as 'other free,' a designation that included black Americans.

After moving to nearby Janesville, Wisconsin, Williams became fascinated by the work of a local physician and decided to follow his path.

His education was funded by Mary Jane Richardson Jones, a prominent activist and leader of Chicago's black community.

[7] When Williams graduated from what is today Northwestern University Medical School, he opened a private practice where his patients were white and black.

This was established mostly for the benefit of African-American residents, to increase their accessibility to health care, but its staff and patients were integrated from the start.

[8] In 1893, during the administration of President Grover Cleveland, Williams was appointed surgeon-in-chief of Freedman's Hospital in Washington, D.C., a post he held until 1898.

That year he married Alice Johnson, who was born in the city and graduated from Howard University, and moved back to Chicago.

[17] Williams was a Professor of Clinical Surgery at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee, and was an attending surgeon at Cook County Hospital in Chicago.

[18] Williams was married in 1898 to Alice Johnson, natural daughter of the Jewish-American sculptor Moses Jacob Ezekiel and a biracial maid.

On September 6, 1891, the first successful pericardial sac repair operation in the United States of America was performed by Henry C. Dalton of Saint Louis, Missouri.

[23][24] The first successful surgery of the heart, performed without any complications, was by Ludwig Rehn of Frankfurt, Germany, who repaired a stab wound to the right ventricle on September 7, 1896.