Editing Jomo Kenyatta (section)

==Personality and personal life==

{{Main|Kenyatta family}}

{{Quote box|width=25em|align=right|quote="Ever a showman, [Kenyatta] could appear one moment in gaily coloured shirts, decorated with the cock of KANU, and the next in elegant suits from Savile Row, seldom without a rose in his buttonhole; he could be photographed in leopard-skin hat and cloak waving a silver fly-whisk or in old slacks on his farm tending his shrubs; he was equally at home in academic robes at a university function and in sandals and shorts on the beach at Mombasa. African exuberance and love of display found perfect expression in Kenyatta's flair alongside the dignity and respect due to 'His Excellency, the President, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta'."|source= —Kenyatta biographer Jeremy Murray-Brown{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=315}} }}

Kenyatta was a flamboyant character,{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=232}} with an extroverted personality.{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=74}} According to Murray-Brown, he "liked being at the centre of life",{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=184}} and was always "a rebel at heart" who enjoyed "earthly pleasures".{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=144}} One of Kenyatta's fellow LSE students, Elspeth Huxley, referred to him as "a showman to his finger tips; jovial, a good companion, shrewd, fluent, quick, devious, subtle, [and] flesh-pot loving".{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=189}} Kenyatta liked to dress elaborately; throughout most of his adult life, he wore finger rings and while studying at university in London took to wearing a [[Fez (hat)|fez]] and cloak and carrying a silver-topped black cane.{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=184}} He adopted his surname, "Kenyatta", after the name of a beaded belt he often wore in early life.{{sfn|Arnold|1974|p=17}} As President he collected a variety of expensive cars.{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=316}}

Murray-Brown noted that Kenyatta had the ability to "appear all things to all men",{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=233}} also displaying a "consummate ability to keep his true purposes and abilities to himself", for instance concealing his connections with communists and the Soviet Union both from members of the British Labour Party and from Kikuyu figures at home.{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=165}} This deviousness was sometimes interpreted as dishonesty by those who met him.{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|pp=215, 216}} Referring to Kenyatta's appearance in 1920s Kenya, Murray-Brown stated the leader presented himself to Europeans as "an agreeable if somewhat seedy 'Europeanized' native" and to indigenous Africans as "a sophisticated man-about-town about whose political earnestness they had certain reservations".{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=107}}

Simon Gikandi argued that Kenyatta, like some of his contemporaries in the Pan-African movement, was an "Afro-Victorian", someone whose identity had been shaped "by the culture of colonialism and colonial institutions", especially those of the [[Victorian era]].{{sfn|Gikandi|2000|p=3}} During the 1920s and 1930s, Kenyatta cultivated the image of a "colonial gentleman";{{sfn|Gikandi|2000|p=9}} in England, he displayed "pleasant manners" and a flexible attitude in adapting to urban situations dissimilar to the lands he had grown up in.{{sfn|Beck|1966|p=317}} A. R. Barlow, a member of the Church of Scotland Mission at Kikuyu, met with Kenyatta in Britain, later relating that he was impressed by how Kenyatta could "mix on equal terms with Europeans and to hold his end up in spite of his handicaps, educationally and socially."{{sfn|Beck|1966|p=316}} The South African [[Peter Abrahams]] met Kenyatta in London, noting that of all the black men involved in the city's Pan-Africanist movement, he was "the most relaxed, sophisticated and 'westernized' of the lot of us".{{sfn|Gikandi|2000|p=5}} As President, Kenyatta often reminisced nostalgically about his time in England, referring to it as "home" on several occasions.{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=320}} Berman and Lonsdale described his life as being preoccupied with "a search for the reconciliation of the Western modernity he embraced and an equally valued Kikuyuness he could not discard".{{sfn|Berman|Lonsdale|1998|p=19}} Gikandi argued that Kenyatta's "identification with Englishness was much more profound than both his friends and enemies have been willing to admit".{{sfn|Gikandi|2000|p=6}}

Kenyatta has also been described as a talented orator, author, and editor.{{sfn|Berman|Lonsdale|1998|p=19}} He had dictatorial and autocratic tendencies,{{sfn|Arnold|1974|p=209}} as well as a fierce temper that could emerge as rage on occasion.{{sfnm|1a1=Murray-Brown|1y=1974|1p=215|2a1=Arnold|2y=1974|2p=209}} Murray-Brown noted that Kenyatta could be "quite unscrupulous, even brutal" in using others to get what he wanted,{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=215}} but he never displayed any physical cruelty or [[nihilism]].{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=216}} Kenyatta had no racist impulses regarding white Europeans, as can, for instance, be seen through his marriage to a white English woman.{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=216}} He told his daughter "the English are wonderful people to live with in England."{{sfn|Arnold|1974|p=32}} He welcomed white support for his cause, so long as it was generous and unconditional, and spoke of a Kenya in which indigenous Africans, Europeans, Arabs, and Indians could all regard themselves as Kenyans, working and living alongside each other peacefully.{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=223}} Despite this, Kenyatta exhibited a general dislike of Indians, believing that they exploited indigenous Africans in Kenya.{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|pp=188–189}}
{{Quote box|width=25em|align=left|quote="I do not think I am—and have never been—an enemy of Europeans or the white people, because I have spent many years in England or in Europe, and even today I have many friends in various nations."|source= —Kenyatta, April 1961{{sfn|Arnold|1974|p=65}} }}

Kenyatta was a polygamist.{{sfn|Maloba|2017|p=23}} He viewed [[monogamy]] through an anthropological lens as an interesting Western phenomenon but did not adopt the practice himself, instead having sexual relations with a wide range of women throughout his life.{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=216}} Murray-Brown characterized Kenyatta as an "affectionate father" to his children, but one who was frequently absent.{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=110}} Kenyatta had two children from his first marriage with Grace Wahu: son Peter Muigai Kenyatta (born 1920), who later became a deputy minister; and daughter [[Margaret Kenyatta (born 1928)|Margaret Kenyatta]] (born 1928). Margaret served as mayor of Nairobi between 1970 and 1976 and then as Kenya's ambassador to the United Nations from 1976 to 1986.<ref>{{cite news |first1=Samuel |last1=Otieno |first2=Maina |last2=Muiruri |url=http://www.eastandard.net/archives/cl/print/news.php?articleid=1143966984 |title=Wahu Kenyatta Mourned |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080612133219/http://www.eastandard.net/archives/cl/print/news.php?articleid=1143966984 |archive-date=12 June 2008 |website=The Standard |date=6 April 2007 |url-status=usurped}}</ref> Of these children, it was Margaret who was Kenyatta's closest confidante.{{sfnm|1a1=Murray-Brown|1y=1974|1p=110|2a1=Maloba|2y=2018|2p=137}}

During his trial, Kenyatta described himself as a Christian{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=265}} saying, "I do not follow any particular denomination. I believe in Christianity as a whole."{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=269}} Arnold stated that in England, Kenyatta's adherence to Christianity was "desultory".{{sfn|Arnold|1974|p=27}} While in London, Kenyatta had taken an interest in the [[atheism|atheist]] speakers at [[Speakers' Corner]] in [[Hyde Park, London|Hyde Park]],{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=130}} while an Irish Muslim friend had unsuccessfully urged Kenyatta to convert to [[Islam]].{{sfn|Murray-Brown|1974|p=130}} During his imprisonment, Kenyatta read up on Islam, [[Hinduism]], [[Buddhism]], and [[Confucianism]] through books supplied to him by Stock.{{sfnm|1a1=Murray-Brown|1y=1974|1p=285|2a1=Maloba|2y=2018|2p=138}} The Israeli diplomat Asher Naim visited him in this period, noting that although Kenyatta was "not a religious man, he was appreciative of the Bible".{{sfn|Naim|2005|p=77}} Despite portraying himself as a Christian, he found the attitudes of many European missionaries intolerable, in particular their readiness to see everything African as evil.{{sfn|Berman|Lonsdale|1998|p=25}} In ''Facing Mount Kenya'', he challenged the missionaries' dismissive attitude toward [[ancestor veneration]], which he instead preferred to call "ancestor communion".{{sfn|Bernardi|1993|p=175}} In that book's dedication, Kenyatta invoked "ancestral spirits" as part of "the Fight for African Freedom."{{sfn|Arnold|1974|p=70}}