The first and only time I met U.S. Rep. John Lewis, he apologized to me.

In the spring of 1987, I was working at Everybody’s Pizza restaurant in Emory Village, while I pursued a doctoral degree in history at Emory University. On this Friday afternoon, I was working what we called the “long lunch” shift — the bridge between the busy lunch rush and the late afternoon when the happy hour crowd arrived.

At about 4 p.m., Congressman Lewis and another man walked in, climbed the seven stairs to our “non-smoking” section, and sat down at table 84. Even as they sat down, his identity had not yet registered in my mind’s eye.

I greeted them quickly and gave them two laminated plastic menus as I went to get them two ice waters with lemon. When I returned, the menus were neatly turned over on the edge of the table; they were ready to order. The words we exchanged I recall almost exactly.

“We’ll have two Everybody’s Hero sandwiches,” the man who was not John Lewis said. “With pickles and chips, please.”

“Anything else to drink?”

“No, water is fine. Thank you.”

As I turned with the menus in hand and their order in my head, I realized that the man who had sat quietly was John Lewis – the young man walking at the head of the line over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, who would have his skull cracked by the club of an Alabama State Trooper, who would be tear-gassed, who would be knocked to the ground on that day the marchers did not make it from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. He was my congressman.

Within a few minutes I was back to their table, two red plastic baskets in hand that held Everybody’s Hero sandwiches. I avoided direct eye contact with John Lewis, fearing the sort of idiotic, graduate-school commentary I might make.

Looking down, I said, “Can I get you anything else?”

“No, we’re fine,” said the man who was not John Lewis.

I finally allowed myself a glimpse of John Lewis. He seemed even smaller in person than he was in the Edmund Pettus Bridge film footage.

Soon the man who was not John Lewis waved me back to the table. But this time it was John Lewis who spoke, so I had to look.

“I’m sorry,” he began, “we’ve lost track of the time and we need to be at a high school graduation ceremony. Is there any way you could wrap up our food to go?”

“Yes, sure … ” I grabbed up the red sandwich baskets.

I returned quickly to the table with the waters and two white to-go bags. John Lewis and the other man were now standing up, smoothing their suits with the palms of their hands. The man who was not John Lewis took the bags and drinks and John Lewis reached into his pants pocket for his wallet.

“I know we’re not supposed to take a table and order food to-go, so I’m really sorry to take up your table and your time and then leave. I appreciate what you did for us, on such a small order.” He smiled. The tab was about $18. He handed me $30.

“Keep it for your trouble,” he said. And again, “I’m sorry about this.”

What John Lewis did in that moment was to put himself in my shoes — a waiter dependent upon the fickle generosity of others. He recognized a small indiscretion, a tiny breach in restaurant etiquette, and moved directly to make it right. There was no way he could even have known I was in his congressional district, much less that I had voted for him. It was a micro-kindness that sprang from the core of his being.

John Lewis is still in my heart as I teach. When I last taught my History of Birmingham course, one student was moved by my retelling of my John Lewis encounter and brought to class a volume of his much-acclaimed series of graphic histories, titled March. She said, “Keep it for a while. I thought you would like it.”

Decades later, my John Lewis moment still makes my eyes water with appreciation and realize how, at any moment, we all have the potential to redeem the meanness in this world.

Mark S. Schantz teaches American history at Birmingham-Southern College.