On one side of the neighborhood are the large apartment complexes along Skinker Boulevard that are home to immigrant families. On the other are the mostly African-American residents who have long called the West End neighborhood home.

Hodiamont Avenue separates the two, except for the bridge-like fields and playground of Amherst Park — a fitting location for a concert Sunday promoting unity about two months after an immigrant teen was gunned down.

"We are the facilitators," said Gitana Productions founder Cecilia Nadal as she spread her hands toward the communities on either side. Nadal started the organization in 1996 to promote cultural awareness through art.

"The reality is that people co-exist without relationships, and community means more than co-existing," Nadal said. "When communities come together, it reduces violence."

The concert from 1 to 6 p.m. included gospel, jazz, rap and Latino music as well as poetry and African and Flamenco dancing. A diverse crowd gathered under trees in the hot sun.

"It's very comfortable. It makes you feel better," said Puerto Rican immigrant Jilixza Rodriguez, 33, who has been staying with a relative in the nearby complex since moving two weeks ago from Arizona for her husband's job. "It makes it feel like family."

Sahele Wodede, 15, who loved math and soccer, was killed June 11 in a drive-by shooting while walking with a friend to his door in the Hodiamont Avenue apartment complex. Sahele's family lived in the apartment complex after immigrating to St. Louis in 2007 from Eritrea, but they moved after just a few months because they felt the area was dangerous. No arrests have been made in the case.

Immigrants from Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, Mexico and Iraq have moved into the Hodiamont complexes over the last four years because of the affordable rent and large apartments, some with four bedrooms, said Ameen Bajwa, who owns the 91-unit complex where Sahele was gunned down. The neighboring complex has 149 units.

Bajwa said the new residents don't feel unwelcome, but there is a lack of interaction with the rest of the neighborhood, which he hopes the concert will begin to change.

"This will bring people together," Bajwa said. "It helps the new immigrants to adapt to American culture; and for people already living in the neighborhood, it will show them the background of people who have recently immigrated."

A group of four young men who grew up in the neighborhood said they feel the shooting had nothing to do with cultural tension. "It could've been any one of us," said Jerick Tiawiu, 19, as he listened to African drumming. "He was just at the wrong place at the wrong time."

For the last 35 years, Jamala Rogers, 59, has worked in the neighborhood as part of the Organization for Black Struggle, whose mission is to empower black residents politically and economically. At the concert, Rogers helped children draw and build Legos together.

"This is an opportunity for both sides to dispel myths about each other," she said. "It is important for immigrants to feel comfortable. … Sometimes people don't even know they exist."