Anwar Floyd Pruitt may be the most interesting man in Milwaukee. He is an artist and puppeteer, a Harvard graduate, and much more. He sat down with WTMJ’s Libby Collins to discuss how he became an artist in his 30s, being attacked while creating a Black Lives Matter mural, and more on this exciting edition of WTMJ Conversations! Listen in the player above.
A partial transcript is provided below, courtesy of eCourt Reporters.
LIBBY COLLINS: You were creating a mural, and you were
attacked. What happened?
ANWAR FLOYD-PRUITT: It’s a summer day. It’s on State
Street. This was a commissioned mural.
LIBBY COLLINS: You weren’t doing graffiti or anything,
yeah.
ANWAR FLOYD-PRUITT: Right. And so, people would
stop and they wanted to talk. There was a person who was drunk in the
middle of the day on State Street. I was holding a large stencil that said,
“Black Lives Matter,” right. And so, I was about to start stenciling that, and
he lunged at me. I was standing inside of a bus stop so the wind wasn’t
blowing my stencil away, so I found myself sort of cornered in this bus
stop.
And I didn’t realize that this person was antagonistic when
they first came up to me and wanted to know, “Hey, what are you doing?”
“I’m painting a Black Lives Matter mural.”
And he wasn’t really there for a conversation. He was drunk.
He was angry. He wanted to know why his life didn’t matter. It was a white
gentleman in his 50s, probably, and drunk in the middle of the day. And he
attacked me.
LIBBY COLLINS: Physically.
ANWAR FLOYD-PRUITT: Physically, yes.
He assaulted me, and I ended up fracturing my hand when
defending myself.