Oprah tries to give Obama a lift with black voters

"We don't have to just dream the dream anymore. We get to vote that dream into reality," Winfrey told a crowd of thousands in a huge football stadium in Columbia, South Carolina on Sunday in a reference to American civil rights leader Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech.

"I believe that now is the time for somebody like Barack Obama," said Winfrey, clad in a yellow jacket and appearing on stage with Obama and his wife, Michelle.

Blacks are expected to make up around half the voters in the Democratic primary in South Carolina, which will be held on Jan. 26, three weeks after the opening round of

voting begins in Iowa.

In the most-hyped campaign tour of the 2008 White House race, Winfrey and the Illinois senator held two rallies in Iowa on Saturday and were headed to New Hampshire after the South Carolina event.