The Statue of Liberty went dark at approximately 10 p.m. ET last night, while immediately lighting up Twitter.
CNN has just reported that the Statue of Liberty has gone dark tonight.
Power failure or social commentary? ?
— Raymond Braun (@raymondbraun) March 8, 2017
According to Jerry Willis of National Parks Service, it was a "temporary, unplanned outage" that occurred "after a lighting system controller was switched off to change out faulty lighting equipment. When the repair was completed, the lighting system controller wasn't properly reset, leading to the outage," he said.
By 11:45 p.m., Lady Liberty's light was restored. But, Willis says it won't be the last outage. Several planned outages are expected to take place over the next few weeks while the backup generator is being replaced.
Regardless, the situation only fueled theories amongst Twitter users as the world approached International Women's Day, especially the Women's March group preparing for the #DayWithoutAWoman.
Thank you Lady Liberty for standing with the resistance and going dark for #DayWithoutAWoman ?
?: @randybals #StatueOfLiberty pic.twitter.com/D0JG9MmSRj
— Women's March (@womensmarch) March 8, 2017
The significance behind the strike, as described by the Women's March website, is to recognize "the enormous value that women of all backgrounds add to our socioecomic system, while receiving lower wages and experiencing greater inequities, vulnerability to discrimination, sexual harassment and job insecurity."
Many social media users found the timing of the power outage to be "just too perfect" as thousands of women were expected to partake in the rallies to call out economic and social inequalities.
Apparently the Statue of Liberty lights went out due to a power failure. But I would argue women are also protesting due to a power failure.
— Aparna Nancherla (@aparnapkin) March 8, 2017
