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You might have heard of subscription boxes. People order monthly meal kits, pet supplies, or even clothes, delivered in a box. So why not a subscription box for math?

Math educator Brittany Rhodes founded Black Girl MATHgic in 2019. It’s a box delivered monthly filled with activities aimed at boosting Black girls’ confidence in math.

You might have heard of subscription boxes. People order things that come every month. They might order meal kits. They might order pet supplies. They might even order clothes! Everything is delivered in a single box. So why not a subscription box for math?

Brittany Rhodes is a math educator. She created Black Girl MATHgic in 2019. Black Girl MATHgic is a subscription box. It is delivered every month. Each box is filled with activities. The activities are meant to boost Black girls’ confidence in math.

Rhodes always enjoyed math. She studied it in college and spent years tutoring math students. She noticed that many of her students lacked confidence in math. The Black girls she tutored didn’t see many people who looked like them in STEM fields. As a result, many of these girls couldn’t see themselves at the top of math-related fields. Rhodes wanted Black girls to know math success was possible for them.

One of Rhodes’s biggest inspirations is Gloria Gilmer. This Black mathematician studied the patterns in braided hair to get young people excited about math. “She saw symmetry in the styles. She saw division in the parts. She saw triangles in the design,” Rhodes explains.

Rhodes has always enjoyed math. She studied it in college. She spent years tutoring math students. She noticed that many of her students were not confident about their math skills. Some of the students she tutored were Black girls. The Black girls didn’t see many people who looked like them in STEM fields. Many of these girls couldn’t imagine being successful in math-related fields as a result. Rhodes wanted Black girls to know that they could succeed in math.

Gloria Gilmer is one of Rhodes’s biggest inspirations. Gloria Gilmer is a Black mathematician. Gilmer studied the patterns in braided hair. She wanted to get young people excited about math. “She saw symmetry in the styles. She saw division in the parts. She saw triangles in the design,” Rhodes explains.

Each Black Girl MATHgic kit includes themed games, activities, and reading material. There’s also a biography and pictures of a present-day Black female mathematician “so that [Black girls] can see people who look like them who are mathematicians,” Rhodes says. 

In February 2020, Rhodes featured Gilmer in a kit themed “Love Your Hair.” The kit included a book, hair-related products, an interview with Gilmer, and math activities.

Each Black Girl MATHgic kit has a theme. The kits have games and activities. The kits have things to read. The kits also include a biography and pictures of a Black female mathematician who is still alive today. Rhodes says that she includes the biography and pictures “so that [Black girls] can see people who look like them who are mathematicians.”

Rhodes featured Gilmer in a kit in February 2020. The kit had the theme “Love Your Hair.” The kit included a book. It included hair-related products. It also had an interview with Gilmer and math activities.