Reagan and South Africa

I was watching ABC This Week this afternoon.  (It's on in the morning, but I tape it while I am at church, then I watch it in the afternoon.)  The topic at the beginning of the episode was Nelson Mandela, who recently passed on.  The narrator was saying that President Ronald Reagan opposed sanctions against South Africa, and that Congress passed sanctions anyway.  And yet, it went on to say that Reagan appointed the first black ambassador to South Africa, and it showed Reagan saying in 1986 that Mandela should be released from prison and allowed to participate in the political process.  I knew about Reagan's stance on sanctions, but I did not know about those other things.