Ron Sakolsky is a scholar covering the intersection of music, revolution and radio. As of 2005, Sakolsky is Emeritus Professor of Public Policy at the University of Illinois at Springfield, previously known as Sangamon State University. For more than twenty years he taught at the university on music and social justice issues, originally attracted by its innovative and radical courses. In 1995 he was one of two faculty members arrested while distributing leaflets objecting to the destruction of the faculty union, in the takeover of the University by the University of Illinois in a restructuring of higher education.[1]
Ron Sakolsky was an active participant in the first International Dub poetry Festival in 1993 and maintains an active interest in this field, as well as generally in world music. He is frequently involved in organizing activities and events on May Day.
He is a frequent broadcaster and guest on community and pirate radio shows, and contributes music reviews, essays and criticism to many music periodicals such as The Beat, a magazine devoted to the music of the African diaspora, LiP Magazine, and to various anarchist publications including Fifth Estate, Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed, Social Anarchism, Green Anarchy and EnDehors. He is known for authoring books and internet texts on pirate and community radio, which have been a significant contribution to the pirate radio and micro-broadcasting movement.