Jomo Kenyatta call "ancestor communion". In that book's dedication, Kenyatta invoked "ancestral spirits" as part of "the Fight for African Freedom." Within Kenya, Kenyatta came to be regarded as the "Father of the Nation", and was given the unofficial title of "Mzee", a Swahili term meaning "grand old man". From 1963 until his death, a cult of personality surrounded him in the country, one which deliberately interlinked Kenyan nationalism with Kenyatta's own personality. This use of Kenyatta as a popular symbol of the nation itself was furthered by the similarities between their names. He came to be regarded as a father figure
Jomo Kenyatta degraded black people. Appearing in the film also allowed him to meet and befriend its star, the African-American Paul Robeson. In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia (Abyssinia), incensing Kenyatta and other Africans in London; he became the honorary secretary of the International African Friends of Abyssinia, a group established by Padmore and C. L. R. James. When Ethiopia's monarch Haile Selassie fled to London in exile, Kenyatta personally welcomed him at Waterloo station. This group developed into a wider pan-Africanist organisation, the International African Service Bureau (IASB), of which Kenyatta became one of the vice chairs. Kenyatta began giving anti-colonial lectures