Theme of The Secret Life of Bees

I think that the book teaches that you shouldn't discriminate even if all the people around you are judging by color or race. Lily is white and she never really paid much attention or thought much of black people other than Rosaleen. However, when the two of them run away together, she meets the Boatwright sisters and Zach (another worker at their farm) and becomes wonderful friends with the sisters and ends up falling in love with Zach. The horrible truth, however, is that her and Zach cannot be together because of the color of their skin, so they promise each other that some day they will meet up again when things have changed and be together again. The whole story revolves around the Civil Rights Movement and black and white racial boundaries.