Songfacts®:

• H.E.R. wrote and recorded this song for Shaka King's film Judas and the Black Messiah. The movie focuses on Fred Hampton, who was chairman of the Black Panther Party in the late 1960s. H.E.R.'s poignant lyrics are inspired by Hampton's fight for social and racial justice.
  
  Freedom for my brothers
  Freedom 'cause they judge us
  Freedom from the others
  Freedom from the leaders, they keepin' us
  
  "His revolution inspired my revolution," H.E.R. shared on social media.
• H.E.R. wrote the song with:
  
  Brooklyn, New York producer Dernst "D'Mile" Emile II, whose other credits include Janet Jackson's "Feedback," Jennifer Lopez' "One Love," and Khalid's "My Bad."
  
  Indianapolis singer-songwriter Tiara Thomas, who first broke through when she featured on Wale's 2013 hit single "Bad." She also co-wrote H.E.R.'s 2020 single "Damage."
• D'Mile and H.E.R. produced the track, which takes influence from funk and soul artists from the '60s and '70s. "We just started to talk and that's honestly why I love working with D'Mile and Tiara because I can talk to them," H.E.R. told Apple Music's Zane Lowe. "We have these conversations and there's a comfortability. I think the biggest thing was listening to some of our favorite, some of my favorites: Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield and people like that, Sly and the Family Stone."
• H.E.R. performed the song live for the first time on the February 4, 2021 episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
• H.E.R received her first-ever Golden Globe nomination when this was nominated for Best Original Song.
• Michael Kiwanuka also recorded a track inspired by Fred Hampton. The English singer-songwriter's 2019 song, "Hero," is his reflection on the civil rights activist's martyrdom at 21.
• This won Best Original Song at the 2021 Oscars.
  
  The Academy Award win for H.E.R., D'Mile and Thomas followed their Grammy for song of the year for "I Can't Breathe" six weeks earlier. Lionel Ritchie was the last artist to bag an Oscar and Grammy in the same awards season for different songs. Back in February 1986, he and Michael Jackson shared the Grammy for song of the year for "We Are The World." A month later, he took home the Academy Award for "Say You, Say Me" from White Nights.
• H.E.R., D'Mile and Tiara Thomas wrote the song after watching Judas and the Black Messiah in the studio. Right after the viewing, they had to come up with something on the spot. D'Mile told Billboard H.E.R. had a conversation with the directors. "The only direction they gave us was that they wanted something upbeat, uplifting and hopeful," he said. "We had to cater to the time of it - the '60s and '70s - which is up our alley. Then we just took it from there."
• H.E.R. started writing the song while quarantined at her mother's house. "The George Floyd protests were everywhere - on social media, on the news - and I couldn't look away," she told the BBC regarding its original inspiration.
  
  H.E.R. got on the phone with Tiara Thomas and they "started talking about pain, anxiety, and the fact this could be one of our family members." The songstress picked up the acoustic guitar that stays next to her bed at her mom's house, played some chords and started singing, "I can't breathe." Thomas told her, "Yo, that just gave me chills."
  
  Realizing she'd expressed something that needed to be said, H.E.R. recorded the song into her phone and sent it to D'Mile, who came up with some bluesy, acoustic instrumentation.
  
  "So the guitar you hear is the same guitar I played into Voice Notes in my bedroom," she recalled.
• "Fight For You" won the Grammy for Best Traditional R&B Performance at the 2022 ceremony. It was nominated for Song Of The Year but lost to "Leave The Door Open" by Silk Sonic.