RALEIGH -- One of the three students who successfully challenged racial segregation as undergraduates at North Carolina's flagship university has died.

Christopher Brandon said Wednesday that his father, 80-year-old John Lewis Brandon, died Tuesday at a hospital outside Houston. He said the cause of death was complications from cancer. 

Brandon was the second of the students to die recently. LeRoy Frasier died Dec. 29 at a New York City hospital. His brother Ralph Frasier lives in Jacksonville, Florida. 

Brandon and the Frasier brothers applied to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1955. They were rejected until a federal court judge ordered their admission.

None of the three graduated from the school. Christopher Brandon said his father got a master's degree from the University of Texas-Clear Lake and worked at Dow Chemical.