OXTAIL COLLECTIVE PRESENTS THE HERCULES POSEY CELEBRATION

Framing Hercules Posey with Chef Chaz Brown, Ramin Ganeshram, and Omar Tate, moderated by Geoff Bennett

We open the Oxtail Collective with a thought-provoking discussion on Hercules Posey. As the enslaved chief cook to George Washington, Hercules Posey was widely known in Philadelphia as “the General’s Cook.” With a limited but valuable written record of his culinary skill, professionalism, resourcefulness, personality, and his subsequent self-emancipation, Hercules is widely considered the first celebrity chef.

Join us for a stellar panel featuring culinary historians, artists, and chefs as they discuss his lasting legacy and his influence on Black chefs today. Lead historian on Hercules Posey, Ramin Ganeshram, will be in conversation with Chef Chaz Brown, the organizing founder of The Oxtail Collective, and Omar Tate, artist and culinary entrepreneur. The discussion will be moderated by PBS NewsHour’s Geoff Bennett.

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MEET THE PANELISTS

Ramin Ganeshram is a culinary historian and award-winning journalist whose work centers on enslaved cooks and free people of color in the colonial Caribbean. America and the Early Federal United States. She is the recognized expert on the life of Hercules Posey, the chef enslaved by George Washington.

A professionally trained chef, Ramin writes about food from the perspective of history and culture. She has written culture and travel articles for The New York Times, ,NPR, BBC Travel, The Washington Post, National Geographic Traveler; Saveur, epicurious.com and others.

She is Currently the Executive Director of the Westport Museum for History & Culture in Westport, Connecticut and has received numerous awards for her leadership and expertise.

Her forthcoming book Stirring Liberty: How George Washington’s Enslaved Chef Transformed American Cuisine and Secretly Cooked His Way to Freedom will be published by Simon & Schuster next year.

Geoff Bennett is co-anchor and co-managing editor of PBS NewsHour, where he brings incisive reporting and sharp analysis to the political and cultural forces shaping American life. Bennett has covered six presidential elections and reported from the White House under three administrations. His exclusive interviews – spanning cultural icons, world leaders, and groundbreaking artists – have drawn wide national attention. His work with the PBS NewsHour team has earned a succession of honors: a Peabody Award in 2024 for coverage of the Israel–Hamas war; a Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism in 2025 for the program’s On Democracy series; and a second Peabody Award in 2026 for the program’s examination of President Trump’s sweeping immigration policy changes during the first year of his second term.

Bennett joined PBS in 2021 from NBC News, where he served as White House correspondent and frequent MSNBC anchor. At NBC, he was part of the team recognized with the 2022 Edward R. Murrow Award for Overall Excellence. His broader broadcast footprint includes appearances as a political analyst on ABC News, CBS News, and NPR, as well as a tenure hosting C-SPAN’s Washington Journal. He launched his journalism career at ABC News’ World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, following his graduation from Morehouse College.

Committed to expanding opportunity in the field, Bennett established a scholarship at Morehouse for English and journalism majors. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the nation’s largest living history museum. In March 2026, Bennett published his debut book, Black Out Loud: The Revolutionary History of Black Comedy from Vaudeville to ’90s Sitcoms (HarperCollins), an instant national bestseller. The book offers a deeply researched exploration of the evolution and cultural impact of Black comedy in America.

He lives in the Washington, DC, area with his wife and their son.

Omar Tate identifies first and foremost as an artist (not a chef) who uses food as one of his many mediums, Omar is a West Philly native who worked for over a decade in acclaimed kitchens across Philadelphia and in New York City before embarking on his own.

Tate has worked fifteen years in the restaurant industry in New York City and Philadelphia, where he noticed the lack of representation of African Americans and people of color in the kitchen and on the plate. In 2017, he decided to tackle this imbalance by broadening the scope of his work to include his practice as a visual artist and writer. In 2018, Omar launched Honeysuckle Pop Up as a traveling dining concept, using food and art as vehicles to explore several nuances of contemporary Black life and culture.

Honeysuckle has received critical acclaim as both a food concept and a leading philosophy of the future of food in America. Partnered with his wife, chef Cybille St. Aude-Tate, Omar launched Honeysuckle Provisions, their Afrocentric grocery and cafe in West Philadelphia, and later in 2025, Honeysuckle Restaurant. You can find Omar’s work featured in The New York Times, Esquire Magazine, Okayplayer, Eater, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and other publications. He has been featured as Esquire’s Chef of the Year, on TIME’s 100 Next list, and on Netflix’s High on the Hog.

Chef Chaz Brown is a French Culinary Institute graduate whose resume includes fine dining kitchens, a stint on Top Chef, and a run on Bravo’s Around the World in 80 Plates.

He is the founder and lead organizer of The Oxtail Collective.