One of the original Little Rock Nine has died in the US at the age of 68.

Jefferson Thomas, a school integration pioneer was among the nine black students who broke the color barrier which had been politically imposed at Arkansas High School in 1957.

As a teenager, Mr Thomas joined his friends in attending the school in the nation’s first major battle over school segregation.

The integration fight involving Jefferson Thomas was a first real test of the federal enforcement of a 1954 Supreme Court order outlawing racial segregation in the nation’s public schools.

While Arkansas Governor, Orval Faubus, sent National Guard troops to block Thomas and the others from entering Central High, President Eisenhower ordered in the Army’s 101st Airborne Division to allow them to pass into the school and into history.

Soldiers stood in the school hallways and escorted each of the nine students to each of their classes.

Each of the Little Rock Nine have since received Congressional Gold Medals for their brave stance.

The medals were presented by President Clinton, a former Arkansas governor, in 1999.

Since then, members of the group were also sent special invitations to the inauguration of the nation’s first black president, Barack Obama, in 2008.

Jefferson Thomas died Sunday in Ohio of pancreatic cancer, according to a statement from Carlotta Walls LaNier, who also enrolled at Central High School in 1957 and is president of the Little Rock Nine Foundation.

The remaining members of the nine are: Walls LaNier, Melba Patillo Beals, Minnijean Trickey Brown, Elizabeth Eckford, Ernest Green, Gloria Ray Karlmark, Terrence Roberts and Thelma Mothershed Wair.