 In 2008 Paperny partnered with David Ridgen and John Fleming on "The Civil Rights Cold Case Project" with the Center for Investigative Reporting.The project brought together partners from across the media and legal spectrum to reveal long-neglected truths behind scores of race-motivated murders from the civil rights era, and to help facilitate reconciliation and healing.The project sponsored work in civil rights-era cold cases, including that of African American shoe-shop owner Frank Morris who was murdered by the Klan in Ferriday, Louisiana in 1964, and that of Clifton Walker, a Natchez Mississippi mill worker murdered by Klan members the same year.