>would we (africans) have to identify existing insurance
>companies, living decendents of large slave holding families,
>banks, and other financial institutions that gained from the
>slave trade?
>
>i'm no law student, but isn't it true that the us government
>can not be sued unless it "agrees" to?
>
The judiciary would allow the legal challenge, not the executive. Your government cannot just simply strike out an action because it wants to; because this would be unconstitutional.

However, you do need a ground of challenge, and as Cocobro pointed out, the practises were probably legal back then. Furthermore, the courts do not act retrospectively (except the EC courts). Could you imagine the floodgates of litigation everytime a piece of law changed if this wasn't the case?