I have this for each, the legend.value is a column in my table where all strings are tags

            $.each(response.all_legends, function (key, legend) {
            tbody+='<tr>'+
                        '<td><a href="" onclick="appendMessageText(this)" class="blue-1">'+escape(legend.value)+'</a></td>'+
                        '<td>'+legend.text+'</td>'+
                    '</tr>';
            });

my problem is that when I encased it inside escape() the tags turn into their entities, how do I fix the UI issue?